<MSTing> 1/5 - "BLOODLINES"
the...@my-dejanews.com
Before we get going, let me send special thanks all those who take
the time and effort to do these MSTings. You're an inspiration,
each and every one of you. No, YOU are. No, YOU! YOU are! Oh, please,
you're embarassing... a thousand dollars and a bumper pool table? Oh,
I couldn't possibly. No, I couldn't. Please, donate to those less fortunate,
along with a single red rose, some Hickory Farms cheese, and a note signed
"Anonymous". No, I insist. That glow of appreciation on your face is thanks
enough.
No, YOU are!
DISCLAIMER (deep breath now!)
Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are
copyright 1998 Best Brains, Inc. "Bloodlines: The Calling" copyright
1998 FireRose. "An Open Window Observing the Battleground" copyright
1995, Reverend Tony Ponticello. Edited for time. This publication is
for entertainment use only. Malibu Dreamhouse sold separately. Stop
reading, you'll spoil the big surprise! Beavis and Butthead copyright
1998 Mike Judge. The McLaughlin Group copyright 1998 John
McLaughlin. You kept reading! You ruined everything! Just like you
always do! Oh, why didn't I listen to mother? Write for an obedient
audience, she said. Don't let those ruffians on the Internet see it.
This publication is not meant as a personal attack on FireRose or Rev.
Ponticello, nor an attack on A COURSE IN MIRACLES, its followers, or
any church affiliated with its teachings. This publication is not
meant to infringe on any copyrights held by Best Brains, Sci Fi
Channel, MTV, Mike Judge, John McLaughlin, FireRose, the Foundation
for Inner Peace, the Community Miracles Center, or any employees
thereof. The jugged fish IS halibut. Copyright 1998 Brendan Herlihy.
(AND... exhale!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
STILL FRAME: Pearl and Observer are in the middle of arguing on the
barren landscape of a planet. After Tom's voice-over, play clips as
described.
TOM (over-dramatic voice-over): Last week, on "Mod Squad"!
PEARL (threateningly): You! You landed us on one of them living planet
deals, didn't you?
CUT TO: Same, a little later
OBSERVER: -the planet now considers us a harmful infection, is
generating antibodies to eliminate the infection, and they should be
here to kill us in about twenty minutes, making us dead... oh, in a
half hour or so.
CUT TO: Interior of Pearl's Van in full flight as they try to escape
the planet. Bobo is hanging out of the van, as Observer leans out the
open door to help him up.
OBSERVER (reaching out): For the love of life, give me your hand!
BOBO: Don't mind if I do.
BOBO grabs Observer's hand and pulls him roughly out of the van.
Observer yelps and falls off the screen into the unknown.
CUT TO: Pearl driving, Bobo entering van.
BOBO: Oh-ho, now Lawgiver, there's no way I could possibly be Bobo's
swarthy antibody.
PEARL: Oh yeah? Why's that?
BOBO takes his hand beneath his chin and pulls it off like a mask.
Close-up. It's... EVIL MIKE from the Mirror Mirror episode!!!
EVIL MIKE (grinning): Because I'm YOUR swarthy antibody!
Musical sting. Evil Mike laughs diabolically. Pearl freezes with her
mouth open in terror.
CUT TO: Opening Title Sequence
"...I should really just relax!
On
M Y S T E R Y
S C I E N C E
T H E A T E R,
3 0 0 0 !
BRANG!"
/ * \... = 2 =...> 3 <... [ 4 ]... ( 5 )... | 6 |...
OPEN ON: <SOL Bridge>, dark. We can make out the silhouettes of the
bots and Mike, lined up in a row, evenly spaced, behind the desk. The
bots are standing perfectly still. Mike is sitting on a stool. From
left to right, the order is Gypsy, Mike, Tom, and Crow.
Before each bot/Mike speaks, Cambot turns a single blue spotlight on
them from directly above, then switches it off when they've finished.
GYPS: I was five when I first understood real pain. My creator was
gone. Like a summer breeze, a spring rain, a Van Damme movie after its
opening week... gone.
CROW (solemnly): Horse. Lick the horse.
MIKE (normally cheery): Hi, everyone, welcome to the Satellite of
Love. You know, they say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, but
off-Broadway, they flicker and fade with all the shame of a Budweiser
sign in an Alc-Anon meeting hall. (spotlight turns off) Hey, I wasn't
finished!
TOM: It snowed the day I was born. I recall my maker's beloved
crescent wrench. Its cold, firm grip on my bolts, its sure torque
securing my head into place. The way he would chase me with it after
we jettisoned his underwear out the airlock. Cruel, wonderous circles.
CROW: Horse. Lick the horse.
MIKE (still in the dark): Can I talk now?
Lights go on to Tom and Crow briefly.
TOM and CROW: NO!
GYPS: Oh, why must I hide behind this cowish façade? Why subjugate my
mind, my humor, to that jump-suited boobie-head?
MIKE (in dark): Hey!
GYPS (apologetic, after light switches off her): It's in the script,
Mike.
TOM: Hard! Hard doth the thumb of Nelsonism quash the spirit of
freedom and liberty! Wicked come his edicts! Far, far doth he hide
the Scooter pies and Mallomars!
MIKE (in dark): You were going to spoil your dinner!
TOM (off script): Himmler said the same thing, fascist!
Cambot turns the light on Crow, and slowly zooms into a close-up on
Crow while playing a low, pulsing tone. By the time Crow finishes only
his eyes are in the shot.
CROW: God has left us. A crow sits on a wire. Ennui. Loathing.
Lick the lonely horse.
Mike pokes his head into the shot.
MIKE: Well, I'm getting a crescent wrench. We'll be right back.
Logo, Commercials. You didn't seem so chipper last night- when you
were constipated!
OPEN ON: <SOL Bridge> Crow, wearing vulcan ears, talking to Gypsy, who
has a metallic ">" to the right of her eye. They are in front and to
the right of the desk.
CROW: So I says to the director, sure! This high-brow stuff might have
played for Harold Pinter and Bertolt Brecht-
We hear Tom off stage yelling, "Nyaaaa-hooo!" and running across the
set in back of the desk. Mike, wielding a crescent wrench over his
head, follows a beat behind him. Neither Crow nor Gypsy pay them any heed.
CROW: -but get with it! This is the nineties! So I've written an
accompanying piece. Something raw, emotional, dripping
with conflict and agitas! Something from Star Trek: Voyager.
GYPSY: That makes good sense.
CROW: So let's read through. I'm Tuvak, confronting Seven of Nine.
(Clears throat, as Servo comes running and yelping the other way, Mike
waving the wrench behind. Crow begins in monotone.) Seven of Nine.
If you do not control your emotional outbursts, you could destroy the
Enterpri- I mean, Voyager.
GYPSY: (emotionless monotone) Why must you lash out at me. Your temper
cuts deeper, than a knife ever could.
CROW: (same) It is because I, care so deeply, that I am so,
impassioned.
GYPSY (same): It moves me, that you are unashamed, to express your,
feelings. I am as giddy, as a little girl.
Planet sign flashes. Tom starts to run past again.
CROW (same): I am happy. That we can be friends, despite being, so,
different.
Mike catches up to Tom, swings the wrench hard down onto his head, we
hear a clank, and Tom groans and falls off screen with the wrench.
Crow turns to him.
CROW (monotone): Captain. You have let, planet sign flash, for almost
five seconds. Now, you must die.
MIKE: Oh, you wanna piece of me, Spockette? Huh? Bring it on, Vul-
crow, c'mon.
CUT TO: Close-up on Pearl. REALLY close-up- all we see is her head.
PEARL: Hey! Nel-sunny Came Home! And your Vengeance! How absolutely
fabulous to see you!
CUT TO: SOL. Gypsy and Tom are in the forefront. Tom has a crescent
wrench sticking snugly out of a dent in his dome. In the background,
Crow is on top of Mike, choking him, monotonally saying, "Die,
captain."
TOM: Uh-oh. Charm. This is not good.
GYPSY: What happened, Pearl?
CUT TO: Close-up of Pearl's face.
PEARL: How magnificently decent of you to ask! The funniest thing!
As Pearl continues, camera pulls back to reveal that her hands and feet
are chained together behind her back, and she's hanging stomach-down
from the ceiling of a dungeon.
PEARL: Turns out, I've been captured by my evil antibody, strung up
like a cured ham, and I can only assume that in a matter of moments,
I'm... gonna... DIE! Yourself?
CUT TO: SOL. Tom still has wrench in his head. Mike is slamming
Crow's on the desk. Crow says, "Ouch, captain."
GYPSY: Crow's killing Mike.
TOM (proudly): I've got an internal brain hemorrhage!
CUT TO: Pearl
PEARL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, Brain Guy and Bobo seem to have bought
the farm. I'm kinda lost without them. Do you think, maybe, you could
see your way clear to...?
EVIL MIKE (scolding from off-screen): Ah-ah-ah!
Cut to: Entry to dungeon. Evil Mike is brightly backlit, clad in
leather similar to Sting in "Dune", and playfully dangling a whip.
A smoke machine is billowing out atmosphere for no perceptible reason.
Suddenly, with a musical sting, the camera closes on his face and he's
front-lit, laughing maniacally.
Cut to: Evil Mike, happily striding around Mrs. F.
EVIL MIKE: Welcome to my House of Pain, Pearl!
PEARL: Can it be? The spitting likeness of Michael J. Nelson... yet as
cunning and immoral as any real estate agent?
EVIL MIKE: Oh, and more so! It's so delicious to have you in my
clutches, Pearl. No doubt you're wondering how it is that I, Mike
Nelson's evil counterpart from a parallel universe, came into being!
Well, my tale begins in an alternate galaxy, where, deep in the heart
of distant black ho-
PEARL (interrupting): Uh, Evil Mike? Sorry. We don't really do
backstory around here.
EVIL MIKE: We don't? Oh. Well, I'm sure you're curious as to how I
could come through to your world without your Nelson switching places
with me! Well, one night, as a terrible ion storm ferociously-
PEARL (interrupting): Or! Or, continuity, either.
Evil Mike start to talk over each other.
EVIL MIKE: Jeez, what, you just slap these evil plots together? I mean,
I'd expect such qualities from, oh, I don't know, a cable access puppet
show or something, but...
PEARL (simultaneously): Well, sometimes a villain can get so caught up
in the little details, they lose sight of the big evil picture, you
know?
EVIL MIKE: ALL RIGHT, ENOUGH! (looks to SOL) What are you looking at?
CUT TO <SOL>. Crow and Mike are wielding foils. Crow says, "Touche,
captain."
GYPSY: Sir? Are you going to kill Pearl?
CUT TO: Cabinet in the House of Pain
EVIL MIKE (rummaging through a junk drawer, tossing odd tools, papers,
and ball point pens away as he talks): I am going to... remove all of
her bones, one at a time, in alphabetical order, using a spork... once
I find one. (Holds up an unidentifiable useless object) What the hey?
CUT TO: SOL. Mike and Crow are playing cards. Crow monotonally says,
"Spit, captain."
GYPSY: That's wrong.
TOM: Yeah, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?
CUT TO: House of Pain. Evil Mike is taping Pearl's mouth shut.
EVIL MIKE: Oh, how callous of me! Of course with Pearl's so-called
"Brain Personage" out of the way, she has no control over your ship...
CUT TO: SOL. All are in party hats, confetti. Mike and Crow are now
playing Twister.
GYPSY and TOM: Yay!
CROW: Right hand red, captain.
MIKE: Shut up!
CUT TO: <House of Pain> Evil Mike is putting a tape measure in various
places against the apprehensive Pearl, and making dotted lines on her
with a piece of chalk.
EVIL MIKE: -but I thought it'd be a larf to re-establish it. You see,
Pearl, as the crowning touch to my triumph, whilst I carve your life
tissue away like so much Boston Chicken, your former prisoners are
going to be partying like it's 2099! I'm sending them the classic
fantasy, "The Phantom Tollbooth", by Norton Juster! (to SOL) Ice
cream and cake, kids! (to Pearl, holding a spork) Now, don't worry,
this won't not hurt a bit. Mwah-hah-hah-hah!
CUT TO: SOL. Mike and Crow are tangled up like a cat's ball of string.
Mike's bent backwards with his legs over his shoulders. Crow's head is
coming out of Mike's pants leg, and his hands and arms are in other
impossible and somewhat embarrassing positions.
TOM: Hey, guys, come on! D'ja hear? It's "Phantom Tollbooth"! And
ice cream and cake! And I'll bet he's even got an old restored Donkey
Kong machine in there too, all set up so you can play it without
quarters or anything!
MIKE (trying to move, failing): Aw, criminy. Crow, why the blazes did
you attack me like that anyway?
CROW: You would not understand, captain. It is a black vulcan thing.
Buzzer sounds.
ALL: We've got Phantom Tollbooth sign!
| 6 |... ( 5 )... [ 4 ]... > 3 <... = 2 =... / * \...
Mike and the Bots enter the theater.
TOM: Ah, "The Phantom Tollbooth". You know, Jules Feiffer's
illustration of Milo is highly influenced by Edvard Munch's "The
Scream".
MIKE: Hey, you know, I never thought of it before, but yeah!
CROW: "For Milo, who always has plenty of time." A classic.
>
> BloodLines: The Calling
>
TOM (singing): He ran calling BlooooooodLines! Hee hee!
MIKE: Um. Wait a minute. That's not the title of "Phantom Tollbooth".
CROW: Yeah, the title of "Phantom Tollbooth" is a lot different than
that.
>
> by FireRose
TOM: No. No, that's... I mean, that's not Slash's chat room handle,
is it?
CROW (scared): Hold me, Mike.
MIKE (nervous): Now, cool it, guys, let's not jump to conclusions.
The Mads and Pearl are evil, and all, but they never lied to us about
the experiment. I'm sure Watchdog and the Humbug are just around the
corner here. I hope.
>
> The BtVS personia are not mine and nether are the personia
> of Highlander, X-Files,
CROW (in terror): Oh my god, IT'S A HIGHLANDER/X-FILES CROSSOVER!
ALL (in soul-wrenching pain): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!
MIKE (clutching his head): YOU SOLD US OUT, EVIL MIKE!
> Nor the Personia concepts in WhiteWolf's games belong to me.
TOM: Yeah, well I got something that DOES belong to you pal! It's
right here, in my clenched fists, and you better get down here, on
your hands and knees, and take it like a man if you know what's good
for ya!
CROW (sobbing): But... it was gonna be "Phantom Tollbooth"! With the
Dodecahedron, and Rhyme and Reason, and the Terrible Dinn, and...
MIKE (hugging Crow): Oh, hush, now, little buddy, it's OK! Boy, when I
get my hands on that me...
> All of these things belong to their respectfull owners I just
> barrowed them
TOM: Oh, no, RATLIFF SPELLING!
ALL: AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGH!!!
MIKE (rises from his seat): ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT! THIS ENDS NOW!
> for my
> sick little games
MIKE (still standing, as Joe Pesci but somehow serious): Oh, so we
amuse you? We are like a clown to you, is that what you're saying?
TOM (concerned): Mike? C'mon, buddy, sit down.
MIKE: No way! I have done everything they've asked, sat through every
crummy movie, spam, and fanfic, but this is the last straw!
> and shall return them ASAP unharmed and
> a little wiser for the experience.
Suddenly there is a quick, almost blinding flash of light from behind
the text of the fanfic. Mike covers his eyes and falls back to his
seat.
ALL: Yah!
MIKE (rubbing his eyes): Man, I'll go with the wiser bit, but unharmed
I'm not so sure.
CROW: When they said, "Do not look directly at fanfic," they weren't
kidding.
TOM: Jeez, I'd blink if I had eyes.
> PS don't sue it could
> be tramatizing
CROW: Oh, so if the government won't build a public tram, this may be
an option.
TOM (as deep-voiced narrator): This fanfic is a tramatization of actual
events. Some names, locations, characters, motivations, facts and
storylines have been changed 'cuz we felt like it.
MIKE: Um- hey guys, is it me, or is there something forming behind
the text there?
> to my creativy and inevitably cause my
> mentle dmise
An old, hunching figure in white robes and a cane walks from the text
into the theater.
ALL (startled): GAH!
FIGURE IN WHITE: GrEeTiNgS.
MIKE: Don't DO that! You'll cause MY mentle dmise.
TOM: If you do, Mike, we'll keep your remains- on the mentlepiece!
CROW: Ha! That was a real creativy comment there, Tom.
TOM: Why thank you!
FIGURE IN WHITE: HeLlO?
> plus I have no money with witch to placate
> you
CROW: Are you a money witch, or an idea witch?
MIKE: Hey, he's not a witch at all! You're Torgo!
TORGO: ToRgO '98, tO bE pReCiSe. LiKe ToRgO '95, bUt mY kNeEs aRe
InTeRnEt rEaDy!
TOM: Wow! Cool!
TORGO: I wOuLd hAvE CoMe SoOnEr, BuT... tHe MaAaS-tEr... cOuLdN't GeT
hIs AoL cOnNeCtIoN rUnNiNg.
> and that would make me feel bad. ;P Feed back please.
CROW: Hey, so why you bustin' in, Torgo?
TORGO: PlEaSe, I nEeD yOuR HeLp. EvIl mIkE's PrEsEnCe hAs BlOwN ThE
eQuIlIbRiUm Of ToTaLiTy AsUnDeR. If He Is NoT sToPpEd, AlL mAtTeR- iN
BoTh uNiVeRsEs- wIlL cOnFlAgRaTe tO NoThInGnEsS.
MIKE: I have no idea what that means, but I bet Joseph Campbell could
wax philosophically about it for hours on public television.
TOM: What Mike is trying to say, Torgo, is, "Duuuuuuuuuh... OK."
> This is a first for me. Have lots of ideas just afrad to
> post them. :(
TORGO: CoMe, My cHiLdReN. ThIs Way.
CROW: But wait, won't Evil Mike see we're gone?
TORGO: I wIlL UsE tHe PoWeR of... tHe MaAa-sTer... To dIvErT tHe
fAnFiC sIgNaL.
TOM: Wow, so you mean, someone ELSE will be stuck reading this
Chernobyl Gym Sock of a crossover? Wicked awesome!
MIKE: Well, gee. I don't know.
> but I'm Happy that I have now beter late
> than never.
Torgo walks back into the text, beckoning.
TORGO: CoMe. YoUr DeStInY AwAiTs. It SmElLs lIkE BaCoN!
BOTS: Yay! Bacon-bacon-bacon where's the BACON!
> :) Thanks for being my lab rats.
Mike picks up Tom, and with Crow, begins to follow Torgo into the text.
TOM: And thanks for the cheese, Catnip, but we're outta here!
Literally! Goodbye, Vietnam! C'mon guys!
CROW: Gosh, Mike. After eight years, we're free! Stop looking so
darned apprehensive.
MIKE: Well, I feel like Gumby. Plus, I can't help worrying about where
that fanfic is going.
A soft white glow engulfs the theater, and Mike and the bots disappear.
CUT TO: A dirty couch in a dark, untended <Living Room>, upon which lie
the silhouetted sleeping forms of two teenage boys. Suddenly the TV
jumps to life with static, then it begins broadcasting the fanfic.
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> Part One
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
The two boys, startled, jump awake.
BOTH: Ahhhhh!
BUTTHEAD: Dammit, Beavis, I told you to stop sleeping on the remote.
BEAVIS: Oh, yeah. Heh-heh. Sorry about that.
Beavis and Butthead laugh through our transition to...
Commercials - Now with wings, for extra protection!
<End Part I>
E-mail rules! (Yeah. Hnh-hnh, hnh.) peasporr...@hotmail.com
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