[MiSTing] "The Odyssey" (3/5) THE SPECIAL EDITION
Tjats
CROW: OW! Watch where you stick that screwdriver.
MIKE: Sorry, Crow.
[Servo enters.]
SERVO: Well, Mike, ready for another person to visit from your past?
MIKE[half-listening]: I guess...
SERVO: Alright!
[Servo fiddles with the time machine controlls and a bunch of smoke comes out.]
MIKE[over the noise]: Is it too tight, Crow?
CROW[over the noise]: No, Mike. It's just fine.
MIKE[same]: Okay.
[Ortega pops out of the time machine.]
SERVO: What? Why, it's Ortega!
MIKE: Oh, hi, Ortega! How've you been?
[Ortega grunts.]
CROW: How are the wife and kids?
[Ortega nods and grunts reasuringly.]
-movie sign-
MIKE and 'BOTS: We've got Epic Sign!
[Ortega grunts in a panicky tone.]
6...5...4...3...2...1...
[Crow, Mike, Servo and Ortega enter the theater and sit respectively.]
>He siezed and drained the bowl, and it went down
>so fiery and smooth he called for more:
MIKE[as Data]: I HATE this! This is REVOLTING!
CROW[as Guinan]: More?
MIKE[as Data]: Please.
>'Give me another, thank you kindly.
>Tell me,
>how are you called?
MIKE[as Odysseus]: By phone.
[The 'Bots chuckle, Ortega makes a sort of grunting laugh.]
>I'll make a gift will please you.
SERVO: Huh?
CROW: I think we just skipped a few words in the translation.
>Even Cyclopes know the wine grapes grow
>out of grassland and loam in heaven's rain,
>but here's a bit of nectar and ambrosia!'
SERVO: Huh?
MIKE[mater-of-factly]: Drink and food of the gods.
SERVO: Oh.
>Three bowls I brought him, and he poured them down.
>I saw the fuddle and flush come over him,
[Servo makes a toilet-flushing noise.]
>then I sang out in cordial tones:
>
>'Cyclops, you ask my honorable name? Remember
>the gift you promised me, and I shall tell you.
SERVO: So, if Odysseus tells him his name, he'll get a present?
MIKE: I guess.
SERVO: Yo! Cyclops dude! I'm Tom Servo!
MIKE: Shut up.
>My name is Nohbdy: mother, father, and friends,
>everyone calls me Nohbdy.'
CROW[as one of the crewmembers]: But, I thought your name was Odysseu-
MIKE[as Odysseus]: Shhh!
>And he said: 'Nohbdy's my meat,
SERVO[as Cyclops]: And this wine is my treat!
MIKE: Hardy-har-har.
> after I eat his friends.
>Others come first. There's a noble gift, now.'
MIKE: I'd want to be taken first.
[Ortega grunts in agreement.]
>Even as he spoke, he reeled and tumbled backward,
>his great head lolling to one side; and sleep
>took him like any creature. Drunk, hiccuping,
>he dribbled
MIKE[announcer]: past the defense, he's jumping, OH! Whatta dunk! The
Rockets are ahead by one, now...
>streams of liquor and bits of men.
CROW[as crewmember]: Hey! Look at this! I think I found Larry!
>
>Now, by the gods, I drove my back hand spike
>deep in the embers, charring it
SERVO: to a cinder, as which it was completely useless.
>again,
>and cheered
MIKE and 'BOTS: Yaaaay!
>my men along with battle talk
>to keep their courage up: no quitting now.
>The pike of olive, green through it had been,
>reddened and glowed as if about to catch.
CROW: Catch what?
>I drew it
MIKE: with my crayons.
>from the coals and my four fellows
>gave me a hand, lugging it near the Cyclops
>as more than natural force nerved them; straight
>forward they sprinted, lifted it, and rammed it
>deep in his crater eye, and I leaned on it
>turning it as a shipwright turns a drill
>in planking, having men below to swing
>the two-handled strap that spins it in the groove.
MIKE: You know, I might actualy enjoy this if I knew what the heck
Odysseus was saying.
>So with our brand we bored that great eye socket
>while blood ran around the red-hot bar.
>Eyelid and lash were seared; the pierced ball
>hissed broiling, and the roots popped.
CROW: So, is this the director's cut, or...?
>In a smithy one sees a white-hot axhead or an axe
>plunged and wrung in a cold tub, screeching steam-
>the way they make soft iron hale and hard-
SERVO: So, all of a sudden it's a Mideval Shop Class 101 textbook?
>just so that eyeball hissed around the spike.
>The Cyclops bellowed and the rock roared round him,
>and we fell back in fear. Clawing his face
>he tugged the bloody spike out of his eye,
>threw it away, and his wild he went groping;
>then he sent up a howl for Cyclopes
CROW[as whiny Cyclops]: Mommy! Those evil foreign guys poked my eye out!
Waaaaah!
>who lived in caves on windy peaks nearby.
>Some heard him; and they came by divers ways
>to clump around outside and call:
>
>'What ails you, Polyphemus?
SERVO[as Cyclopes]: What the hell are you doing in there?
>Why do you cry so sore
>in the starry night? You will not let us sleep.
CROW[as whiny Cyclops]: Those mean guys hurt me! Waaaaah!
>Sure no man's driving off your flock?
MIKE: In a chevy 4X4.
>No man
>has tricked you, ruined you?'
>
>Out of the cave the mammoth Polyphemus roared in answer:
>'Nohbdy, Nohbdy's tricked me, Nohbdy's ruined me!'
SERVO: Poor dope.
>To this rough shout they made a sage reply:
>'A well, if nobody has played you foul
>there in your lonely bed, we are no use in pain
>given by great Zeus. Let it be your father,
>Poseidon Lord, to whom you pray.'
MIKE: Uh, oh. Poseidon's gonna get Odysseus!
>So saying they trailed away. And I was filled with laughter
>to see how like a charm the name decieved them.
>Now, Cyclops, wheezing as the pain came on him,
>fumbled to wrench away the great doorstone
>and squatted in the breach with arms thrown wide
>for any silly beast or man who bolted-
>hoping somehow I might be such a fool.
CROW: And I was and he caught me and he ate me the end.
>But I kept thinking how to win the game:
SERVO: I mean, I only had two pair. What was I gonna do?
>death sat there huge; how could we slip away?
CROW: What idiots! They poked his eye out, and they *still* can't get away!
>I drew on
MIKE: ...papyrus paper.
>all my wits, and ran through tactics,
SERVO: How about running through the door?
>reasoning as a man will for dear life,
>untill a trick came-and it pleased me well.
>The Cyclops' rams were handsome, fat,
MIKE: He complimented *and* insulted the rams in the same sentence!
> with heavy
>fleeces, a dark violet.
MIKE and 'BOTS: Huh?
>Three abreast I tied them silently together, twining
>cords of willow from the ogre's bed
CROW: So, he's tying rams together?
SERVO: Yep.
>then slung a man under each middle one
>to ride there safely, shielded left and right.
>So three sheep could convey each man. I took
>the wooliest ram, the choicest of the flock,
>and hung myself under his kinky belly,
SERVO: Saving the best for himself? Aren't the heroes supposed to be
*not* selfish?
MIKE: Well, there's Marrissa, David Kintobor, William Shatner...
SERVO: I said *heroes*, Mike.
>pulled up tight, with fingers twisted deep
>in sheepskin ringlets for an iron grip.
>So, breathing hard, we waited until morning.
CROW: Let's not try to escape and see how things play out.
>When dawn with fingertips of rose
MIKE: How do they know it's dawn? They're in a cave with the door shut.
>the rams began to stir, moving for pasture,
>and peals of bleating echoed round the pens
>where dams with utters full called for a milking.
CROW: Translation error! Rams are not dams, and certainly wouldn't
be usefull *as* one!
>Blinded, and sick with pain from his head wound,
>the master stroked each ram, then let it pass,
>but my men riding on the pectoral fleece
>the giant's blind hands blundering never found.
SERVO: I can name a kagillion things wrong with that sentence!
>Last of them all my ram, the leader, came,
>weighted by wool and me with my meditations.
>The Cyclops patted him, and then he said:
>
>'Sweet cousin ram,
CROW[as Desi Arnaz]: Cousin? Lucy, you've got some 'splanin' to do!
>why lag behind the rest
>in the night cave? You never linger so,
>but graze before them all, and go afar
>to crop sweet grass, and take your stately way
>leading along the streems, untill at evening
>you run to be the first one in the fold.
MIKE: Gee, do you suppose Odysseus is under it, waiting to escape?!?
>Why, now, so far behind? Can you be grieving
>over your master's eye?
CROW[muffled, as Odysseus]: Yes! That's it! Now leave me alone!
>That carrion rouge
MIKE: Cambot? A little help?
Cbot1:>carrion rouge: Repulsive scoundrel.
CROW: Thakns.
>and his accurst companions burnt it out
>when he had conquered all my wits with wine.
>Nohbdy will not get out alive, I swear.
MIKE: So *Evrybdy* will get out alive?
[The 'Bots chuckle, Ortega grunts a laugh.]
>Oh, had you brain and voice to tell
>where he be now, dodging all my fury!
MIKE[as Cyclops]: I think I'll take it all out on you!
CROW[muffled, as Odysseus]: No! Wait!
>Bashed by this hand and bashed on this rock wall
>his brains would strew the floor, and I should have rest from the outrage
> Nohbdy worked upon me.'
>
>He sent us into the open, then. Close by,
>I dropped and rolled clear of the ram's belly,
>going this way and that to untie the men.
>With many glances back, we rounded up
>his fat, stiff-legged sheep to take aboard,
>and drove them down to where the good ship lay,
>shining; then we saw them turn to grief
MIKE: ...when they found out I was still alive.
>tallying those who had not fled from death.
>I hushed them, jerking head and eyebrows up,
SERVO[as crewmember]: Ow! Let go of my eyebrows!
>and in a low voice told them: 'Load this herd;
>move fast, and put the ship's head toward the breakers.'
MIKE: Oh, good. They're going to break the ship apart.
>They all pitched in at loading, then embarked
>and struck their oars into the sea. Far out,
CROW[as hippie from "Laserblast"]: Faaaaar out!
>as far offshore as shouted words would carry,
>I sent a few back to the adversary:
>'O Cyclops! Would you
MIKE: like some of my fruitcake? It's delicious!
>feast on my companions?
>Puny, am I, in a cave man's hands?
>How do you like the beating that we gave you,
>you damned cannibal?
SERVO[as Cyclops]: I like it very much!
>Eater of guests
>under your roof! Zeus and the gods have paid you!'
>
>The blind thing in his doubled fury broke
>a hilltop in his hands and heaved it after us.
>Ahead of our black prow it struck and sank
MIKE: Odysseus is the hero? He's so stupid, he could get himself killed!
CROW: Yeah! Yelling after the Cyclops like that!
>whelmed in a spuming geyser, a giant wave
>that washed the ship
SERVO[kind old aunt]: That was really nice of the Cyclops.
>stern foremost back to shore.
Servo: D'oh!
>I got the longest boat hook out and stood
>fending off, with furious nods to all
>to put their backs into a racing stroke-
>row, row, or perish.
MIKE and 'BOTS[singing]: Row, row, perish the boat/Gently down the
stream/Cyclops
throws rocks at the boat/Everybody scream!
> So the long oars bent
>kicking the foam sternward, making head
>until we drew away, and twice as far.
>Now when I cupped my hands I heard the crew
>in low voices protesting:
>
>'Godsake, Captain! Why bait the beast again? Let him alone!'
CROW[as crewmen]: Uh, we mean, "leave him alone"!
>
>'That tidal wave he made on the first throw
>all but beached us.'
>
>'All but stove us in!' 'Give him our bearing with your trumpeting,
SERVO: Odysseus is using a trumpet?
CROW: I tell you, reading this is like having someone blow a trumpet in my
ear!
>he'll get the range and lob a boulder.'
>
>'Aye He'll smash our timbers and our heads together!'
>
SERVO[as Scotty]: And the engines are gonna blow!
>I would not heed them in my glorying spirit,
>but let my anger flare and yelled:
>
>'Cyclpops, if ever mortal man inquire
>how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him
>Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:
>Laertes' son, whose home's on Ithaca!'
MIKE: Dope! Don't tell him who you are!
>
>At this he gave a mighty sob and umbled:
>
>Now comes the weird upon me, spoken of old.
>A wizard, grand and wondorous, lived here-Telemus,
>a son of Eurymus; great length of days
>he had in wizardty among the Cyclopes,
CROW: ...before we ate him!
>and these things he foretold for time to come:
>my great eye lost, and at Odysseus' hands.
>Always I had in mind some giant, armed
>in giant force, would come against me here.
MIKE: ...like a giant?
>But this, but you-small, pitiful and twiggy-
>you put me down with wine, you blinded me.
>Come back, Odysseus, and I'll treat you well,
CROW[as Cyclops]: I really really will! Bwahahahahaha!
>prating the god of earthquake to befriend you-
>his son I am, for he by his avowal
MIKE: Cambot?
CAMBOT[voice-over]: Sorry, Mike. It's not in my vocabulary bank.
>fathered me, and, if he will, he may
>heal me of this black wound-and no other
>of all the happy gods of mortal men.'
>
>Few words I shouted in reply to him:
>
>'If I could take your life I would and take
>your time away, and hurl you down to hell!
>The god of earthquake could not heal you there!'
CROW: Those were "a few" words?
>
>At this he stretched his hands out in the darkness
>toward the sky of stars, and prayed Poseidon:
MIKE[as Poseidon, underwater]: I'm down here!
>
>'O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands,
>if I am thins indeed, and thou art father:
>grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never
>see his home: Laertes' son, I mean,
CROW[as Poseidon]: I know who he is! Get on with it!
>who kept his hall on Ithaca. Should destiny
>intend that he shall see his roof again
>among his family in his father land,
>far be that day, and dark the years between.
>Let him loose all comanions, and return
>under strange sail to bitter days at home.'
>
>In these words he prayed, and the god heard him.
>Now he laid hands upon a bigger stone
>and wheeled around, titanic for the cast,
MIKE: killing Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet.
>to let it fly in the black-prowed vessel's track.
>But it fell short, just aft the steering oar,
>and whelming seas rose giant above the stone
>to bear us onward toward the island.
SERVO: You know, Odysseus could have just said, "no thanks".
>
>There as we rowed we saw the squadron waiting,
>the trim ships drawn up side by side, and all
>our troubled friends who waited looking seaward.
>We beached her,
MIKE and 'BOTS: Yay! Now they can't go anywhere anymore! Yay!
>grinding keel in the soft sand,
>and waded in,
MIKE: Haven't they ever heard of anchors?
>ourselves, on the sandy beach.
>Then we unloaded all of Cyclops' flock
>to make division, share and share alike,
SERVO: Isn't Sharon Sharalike one of Carmen Sandiego's henchmen?
>only my fighters voted that my ram,
>the prize of all, should go to me. I slew him
>by the seaside and burnt his long thighboes
>to Zeus beyond the stormcloud.
CROW: And then I did the same thing with my ram.
[Mike and Servo chuckle, Ortega grunts.]
>Cronus' son,
>who rules the world. But Zeus disdained my offering;
>destruction for my ships he had in store
>and death for those who sailed them, my companions.
MIKE: But still, not a major loss...
>Now all day long until the sun went down
>we made our feast on mutton and sweet wine,
>till after sunset in the gathering dark
>we went to sleep above the wash of ripples.
>
>When the young Dawn with
MIKE: "fingertips of rose", I know.
>fingertips of rose
>touched the world, I roused the men, gave orders
>to man the ships, cast off the mooring lines;
>and filling in to sit beside the rowlocks
>oarsmen in line dipped oars in the gray sea.
>So we moved out, sad in the vast offing,
Cbot1:>offing: The distant part of the sea visible from the shore.
MIKE: We don't care anymore, Cambot.
CAMBOT: Sorry.
>having our precious lives, but not our friends.
>
SERVO[as drunk college student]: I miss you guys. And when we graduate we'll
never see
each other again, man!
>The Land of the Dead
MIKE: This week Odysseus visits Maralyn Manson.
>
>(Odysseus and his men sail to Aeolia, where Aeolus,
MIKE: ...king of the Aeolians...
>king of the winds, sends Odysseus on his way with a gift: A sack
>containing all the winds exept the favorable west wind.
CROW[as Odysseus]: Yeah, thanks a lot. What am I going to do with a bag of
winds?
MIKE: See, the other three winds are insinde the bag and can't be used, so the
west wind won't change, and west is where he needs to go.
SERVO: I still don't get it.
MIKE: Just keep reading.
>When they are near home, Odysseus' men open the sack, letting loose
>a storm that drives them back to Aeolia.
CROW: What idiots.
>Aeolus casts them out, having
>decided
MIKE[as Amy Grant]: I have decided...
>that they are detested by the gods.
>They sail seven days and arrive in the land of the Lastrygonians,
SERVO: The Last of the Rygonians.
>a race of cannibals. These creatures destroy all of Odysseus' ships exept
>the one he is sailing in.
CROW: The odds of that are 7 to 1.
>Odysseus and his reduced crew escape and reach Aeaea, the island
SERVO: of tounge twisters.
>ruled by the sorceress-goddess
MIKE: So, which one is it?
>Circe. She transforms half of the men into swine.
CROW: The odds of that not affecting Odysseus are 2 to 1, so the whole thing
is 14 to 1! Is this guy lucky or what?
MIKE: I'd like to take his bets down when I go to the track, that's for sure!
>Protected by a magic herb, Odysseus demands that Circe
SERVO: ...make his breakfast and iron his underpants.
>change his men
>back into human form. Before Odysseus departs from the island a year later,
CROW: I guess he forgot all about his family that's waiting at home for him.
>Circe infors him that in order to reach home he must journey to the land
>of the dead, Hades, and consult the bind prophet Tiresias.)
MIKE: Tiresias is Homer, by the way. He put himself into the story.
SERVO: Oh great. All this time we were reading a self-insertion.
>
>We bore down on the ship at the sea's edge
>and launched her on the salt immortal sea,
CROW: They must have needed one big cannon.
>stepping our mast and spar in the black ship;
>embarked the ram and ewe and went aboard
>in tears, with bitter and sore dread upon us.
SERVO: Why?
>But now a breeze came up for us astern-
>a canvas-bellying land breeze, hale shipmate
>sent by the singing nymph with sunbright hair;
MIKE: And that would be...?
>so we made fast the braces, took our thwarts,
>and let the wind and steersman work the ship
>with full sail spread all day above our coursing,
>till the sun dipped, and all the ways grew dark
>upon the fathomless unresting sea.
>By night our ship ran onward toward the Ocean's bourn.
CROW: Why is ocean capitalized?
SERVO: Just another typo. Keep reading.
>the realm and region of the Men of Winter,
>hidden in mist and cloud.
CROW: And see? "The" is not capitalized at the begining of the sentence!
MIKE: Crow, stop complaining about the poor quality of the epic!
CROW: I will not! This stupid thing is insane! None of this could ever
happen! I-
[Mike shuts Crow's mouth.]
>Never the flaming
>eye of Helios lights on those men
>at morning, when he climbs the sky of stars,
CROW[muffled]: Mmmffthphmmhh!
[Mike holds Crow's mouth even tighter.]
>nor in descending earthward out of heaven;
>ruinous night being rove over those wretches.
CROW[muffled]: Mmmffthphmmhh!
>We made the land,
SERVO: And on the seventh day we rested.
>put ram and ewe ashore,
>and took our way along the ocean stream
>to find the place foretold for us by Circe.
MIKE[Odysseus]: Let's see...Land of the Dead...Land of the Dead...nope. Can't
find it.
We must have an old map.
SERVO[wife]: Why don't you go to that Land of the Dead map store over there?
Mike[Odysseus]: No, I can find it. Don't worry.
>There Perimedes and Eurylochus,
>pinioned the sacred beasts.
Cbot1:>pinioned: Confined or shackled.
>With my drawn blade
>I spaded up the votive pit, and poured
>libations round it to the unnumbered dead:
>sweet milk and honey,
MIKE: All this time the epic was just an ad for honey nut cheerios?
>then sweet wine, and last
>clear water; and I scattered barley down.
>Then I addressed the blurred and breathless dead,
>vowing to slaughter my beast heifer for them
>before she calved, at home in Ithaca,
>and burn the choice bits on the altar fire;
MIKE: Dear dead, I vow to slaughter my beast heifer for you before she calves.
Hope to see you soon, Odysseus.
CROW[muffled]: Mmmffthphmmhh!
MIKE: Oh, sorry.
[Mike lets go of Crow's mouth.]
>as for Tiresias, I swore to sacrifice
SERVO: ...him to the gods.
>a black lamb, handsomest of all our flock.
>Thus to assuage the nations of the dead
>I pledged these rites,
ALL: To the United States of America. And to the republic for which it
stands...
>then slashed the lamb and ewe,
>letting their black blood stream into the wellpit.
>Now the souls gathered, stirring out of Erebus,
>brides and young men, and men grown old in pain,
>and tender girls whose hearts were new to grief;
>many were there, too, torn by brazen lanceheads,
>battle-slain, bearing still their bloody gear.
MIKE: I can't take this any more! I'm leaving.
[Mike, the 'Bots, and Ortega leave the theater.]
1...2...3...4...5...6...
[SOL int.] Mike and Gypsy are saying goodbye to Ortega.
MIKE: See you some other time, Ortega!
GYPSY: It was nice having you! Bye bye!
[Ortega grunts a reply and disappears into the time machine.]
MIKE: Say, where's Crow and Servo?
[The camera pans to the left to reveal Crow, on the counter(which is altered to
resemble Odysseus' ship) and Servo, with the lifts from episode 903, and an eye
painted on his gumball head to the left of it.]
CROW: Hahaha! You, Cyclops, will never beat me! Now I will tell you who I am
so you can curse me and make it so I can't get home!
SERVO: Then I will haul big things at you and call you a booger! Hahaha!
[Crow and Servo laugh for a while, and then get tired.]
MIKE: So, are you finished?
SERVO: I guess so.
[Pearl, Bobo, and Observer pop onto the bridge, startling Gypsy, who falls over
and crashes on the ground.]
MIKE: What are you doing here?
PEARL: We want to see how you're coming with The Odyssey.
MIKE: Pretty good. We're at the part where-
-commercial sign-
MIKE: Oh, it's commercial sign. Better get back in the theater. Come on,
guys!
[Mike and the 'Bots leave the bridge.]
PEARL: Okay, Brain Guy, let's go back to the castle.
OBSERVER: Uh, madam, I can't get us off when the epic is on. Your son
installed lots of security devices, and everything...
PEARL: You mean, we have to read it with them?
OBSERVER: Well, yes...
[Pearl hits Observer on the head.]
[commercials]
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