[Repost] End of THE BLACK ISLAND (3/3)

[Tarl Roger Kudrick]

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents:
"The Black Island" (part 3 of 3)

"The Black Island" is (C) 1952 by August W. Derleth, and originally
appeared in "Weird Tales" magazine.

This MST3K Parody is (C) 2002 by Tarl Roger Kudrick
(tar...@comcast.net), with a couple of jokes added by Francis Heaney.

Disclaimers:

Any deviation from the original text of "The Black Island" is either the
result of Tarl's heavy editing, or a transcription error. Text which was
italicized in the original is _underscored_like_this_ in the Usenet
version.

Also, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K) is a registered trademark
of Best Brains, as are the MST3K characters and locations.

==============================================

(Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow are text characters again.)

TOM: Hammers...nails...screws...
MIKE: It's okay, Tom. Look! The story's starting again.
CROW: Oh, THAT'll help.

> On our arrival at Ponape, our party was met by a grim-
> visaged American naval officer in white uniform, who drew
> Professor Shrewsbury to one side and spoke briefly with him,

CROW: "I thought I told you never to visit me here!"

> while we waited, together with a shabby-looking seaman who seemed
> also to desire some words with the professor. This seaman
> presently caught the professor's eye; certainly Professor
> Shrewsbury did not resent the seaman's familiarity,

TOM: Are we absolutely, POSITIVELY SURE this wasn't published in
an erotic magazine?
MIKE and CROW: YES!!!
CROW: I think.

> and within a few moments he was walking at the professor's side,
> talking animatedly in a dialect I did not clearly understand.

MIKE: It was that weird language that smart people talk.

> The professor listened to him but a short while. Then he
> halted our party and abruptly altered our immediate plans.

CROW: How can anything that happened that fast take so long to
describe?

> "Phelan and Blayne, come alone with me. The rest of you go
> to our quarters. Keane, send for Brigadier-General Holberg."

MIKE: On the theory that if we keep adding people to this story,
eventually, it'll make sense.

> Phelan and I therefore accompanied Professor Shrewsbury and
> his rough companion, who led the way through devious streets and
> lanes to a building which was assuredly little more than a hovel.
> Lying on a pallet there, another seaman awaited us.

TOM: (Whining) Mike...
MIKE: For the last time, it was published in "Weird Tales"!

> Both men had evidently had foreknowledge of our arrival,

MIKE: Because they'd baked us a cake.

> for the professor had sent ahead months ago for any lore of a
> mysterious island which rose on occasion and vanished as
> strangely.

CROW: And if a seedy-looking sailor living in a crappy hovel isn't a
reliable witness, I don't know what is.

> It was manifestly such knowledge as the ailing seaman wished now
> to impart.

MIKE: You've just read August Derleth's official entry in the "Worst
Sentence Ever Written" contest.

> His name was Satsume Sereke; he was of Japanese extraction,
> but clearly of mixed blood,

TOM: He was Type A AND Type B.

> and of more than the usual education.

CROW: Which for these guys means he could tie his shoes correctly.

> He was approaching middle age, but looked older. He had been a
> hand on a tramp steamer,

MIKE: [As Homer Simpson] Mmmmm...steamed tramp.

> the _Yokohama_, out of Hong Kong; the steamer had been wrecked and
> he had been one of the men in a life-boat. Before permitting him
> to go farther, Professor Shrewsbury now asked us to take careful
> note of what Sereke said.

TOM: Okay, let's see. Uh, so far he's said he survived a boat accident.
Everyone got that?
MIKE and CROW: Yup.

> The account I set down differed in no detail from Phelan's.

CROW: Doesn't he mean Sereke's?
MIKE: Maybe he's talking about a checking account.

> "Our course was for Ponape. Bailey had a compass, and so we
> knew where we were going.

MIKE: Nowhere, fast.

> "The first night after the storm we were moving along all right--
> Henderson and Melik were at the oars, with Spolito and Yohira--

TOM: Nope, they added more people and the story still doesn't make a
lick of sense.

> "it was clear, we had enough food and water, nobody dreaming
> anything, I mean--

MIKE: So the food and water was real, not imaginary.

> "we saw something in the water. We thought it was sharks or
> porpoises, maybe marlins, we couldn't see well enough. It was
> dark, and they stayed away from the boat, they just followed us
> and went along with us.

CROW: Yes, it's the only thing better than a story within a story: a
pointless, meandering story within a pointless, meandering story.

> "Along about my watch, they came closer.

TOM: It's a new game: Find the unnecessary word!
CROW: So far, I've found about two thousand of them.

> "They had a funny look, like they had arms and legs instead of
> fins and a tail, but they were up and down so much you couldn't
> be sure. Then, quicker than a cat, something reached over into
> the boat and got Spolito--just pulled him out; he screamed,

MIKE: I'm about ready to scream, too.

> and Melik reached out for him, but he was gone before Melik could
> get to him; Spolito just went down and never came up again. All
> our followers were gone quick. After that nothing more, and when
> morning came we saw the island.
> "It was an island, where none was before.

CROW: To boldly go where no island had gone before.

> "There were remains of buildings on it, buildings like I never saw
> before,

TOM: "With neon signs flashing 'Live Nudes'."

> "with big, odd-shaped blocks of stone. There was an open door,
> very large, partly broken away. Henderson had the glasses,

CROW: How many people were on this boat, anyway?

> "and he got a good look. Henderson wanted to go to the place, but
> I didn't. Well, he talked, and Mason, Melik, and Gunders

TOM: Gunders?

> "decided to go ashore; Benton and I held back

MIKE: To keep an eye on Jonny, Hadji, and Bandit,

> "and the way we settled it was we rowed over, and Benton and I
> stayed in the boat with the glasses to watch the others.

CROW: Who went off in the boat without the glasses.

> "All four of them went on to that doorway.

MIKE: HOLD IT! Four of them? I thought Mason, Melik, and Gunders went
ashore, and Henderson, Benton, Sereke, and Yohira stayed on the boat.
CROW: And Bailey.
MIKE: Who's Bailey?
CROW: The guy with the compass.
TOM: I thought he was the guy with the glasses.
MIKE: No, the boat has the glasses.
CROW: Blayne has the glasses. The narrator's saying "I".
TOM: No, Blayne's retelling Sereke's story.
MIKE: This story wasn't worth telling the FIRST time!

> "I don't know how it happened

MIKE: Welcome to the club!

> "but something big and black just puffed out of the doorway and
> fell on the four of them.

ALL: Hooray!

> "It pulled back with a horrible sucking noise,

TOM: It's Ross Perot!

> "but Henderson and Mason and the others were gone.

MIKE: "And the others." Even the author can't keep track.

> "Benton had seen it, too, but not as clear.

ALL: ClearLY!

> "I didn't go to look, I didn't want to see any more. We rowed as
> fast as we could and got away from there. We never stopped rowing
> until the freighter _Rhineland_ picked us up."

TOM: "Hello, sailors!"

> "Did you set down the latitude and longitude of the island?"
> asked Professor Shrewsbury.
> "No. But we lost the ship at about South Latitude 49 degrees
> 51 minutes, West Longitude 128 degrees 34 minutes.

MIKE: I guess he was too busy writing down longitude and latitude to
notice that big coral reef they were heading for.

> "It is toward Ponape from there, but not close to Ponape."

CROW: And the sound you just heard was a thousand English teachers
rolling in their graves.

> "You saw this thing in the morning, by daylight?"
> "Yes, but there were fogs--green fogs; it was not clear."

MIKE: We know how you feel.

> "How far out of Ponape?"
> "Perhaps a day."
> Professor Shrewsbury succeeded in establishing no more.

TOM: Oh man, he was our last hope.

> We returned to the quarters he had arranged for us. There we
> found Bridagier-

TOM: Lethbridge-Stewart.

> General Holberg, a grim, grey-haired man of approximately sixty,

CROW: Years or I.Q. points?

> waiting for us. Immediately after introductions had been
> exchanged, he came to the subject of his presence and his reason
> for it.
> "I have been told to place myself at your disposal, Professor
> Shrewsbury.

TOM: That's it, I'm leaving.
MIKE: No, Tom! It was "Weird Tales" magazine!
TOM: But Mike! If there was only one woman in this story, anywhere! A
waitress! A random passerby! Anything!

> "Operation Ponape is apparently your personal project."
> "You have been given some of the documents to read, surely?"
> "I have read the documents, yes.

ALL: "But stop calling me Shirley!"

> "I have no comment to make. This is your field, not mine. I have
> a destroyer ready for your use as soon as you wish to come aboard.
> The weapon is in readiness, subject to my order. I understand you
> will attempt destruction with other weapons first?"

MIKE: "Yes, we're going to read this story aloud to the thing."

> "That is the plan, yes."
> "When do you expect to leave Ponape, sir?"
> "Within a week, General."
> "Very good. We shall be at your disposal."

TOM: (Whimpers)

> The events of that week on Ponape were essentially trivial,

CROW: And will be elaborated on until you just want to cry.

> concerning primarily the amassing of powerful explosive weapons
> for use on the Black Island, if indeed we could find that
> uncharted land area.

TOM: If not, we'd find something else to blow up.

> But behind these superficial tasks loomed something profoundly
> disturbing. It was not alone the undeniable fact that we were
> under surveillance;

MIKE: Who'd want to watch THESE guys?

> we had come to expect that. It was not only that we were
> constantly aware of an impending task of singular magnitude; this
> too was to be expected. No, it was something more, it was the
> consciousness of the proximity of a vast and primeval power,
> which gave off a malignance almost tangible.

ALL: (snoring sounds)

> All of us felt this; I alone felt something more.

TOM: What? What did you feel? Other men's firm buttocks? Huh?
MIKE: Tom, please!

> The day of our departure from Ponape dawned sultry and hot--

MIKE: [As Billy Crystal] "Sultry! Sultry!"

> and for me, filled with foreboding. We set out early on the
> destroyer

CROW: All of them fit onto Remo Williams?

> _Hamilton_, with General Holberg aboard. Professor Shreswbury had
> worked out a course;

TOM: Myths for Morons 101.

> aeroplanes had been scouting the sea in the vicinity of the place
> the _Yokohama_ had gone down. It was for this spot that the
> _Hamilton_ set out.
> I do not know whether I actually expected the destroyer to
> reach the Black Island;

TOM: Before everyone on the boat died of boredom.

> certainly I did not share the General's calm confidence.

CROW: He should have brought enough for the whole class!

> But in late afternoon of that day we sighted an uncharted island,
> and within a short time we were lowering a boat containing
> Professor Shrewsbury, Phelan, Keane, and myself; a second boat
> carried paraphernalia together with Boyd and Colum, and two men
> from the destroyer.

MIKE: (Taking notes furiously) Okay, that's four people in each of two
boats.

> Significantly, the ship's guns were trained

TOM: They were on loan from Barnum and Bailey.

> on the structure just visible on the island.

MIKE: (Looking up from his notes) Wait, what struc...oh, never mind.
(Throws notebook away, gives up.)

> It did not surprise me to find the Black Island to be the
> temple peak of my dream. Here it was, exactly as I had seen it,

CROW: Yet they rowed past it six times because he was too busy scaring
everyone with the theme from "Jaws".

> with the carven door open and the mouth of that great portal
> yawning

MIKE: That portal's as bored as we are.

> to the sun despite an aura of mist

CROW: So, like, you can't yawn if it's misty?

> which lay greenly over everything.

TOM: I'm almost positive it's impossible to lie "greenly".

> The ruins were breathtaking, though plainly ravaged by quakes and,
> quite clearly, by explosives, whose ineffectual damage differed
> from that greater damage of the earthquake,

CROW: Was each piece of damage clearly labeled or something?

> which had burst asunder many of the angles of the colossal stone
> building. The building was composed of angles and planes which
> were non-Euclidean,

MIKE: Even geometry's getting multicultural now.

> hinting horribly of alien dimensions and spheres

CROW: So if it's hinting horribly, that means, um, it's being really
blatant about it?
MIKE: No, it means that there's almost no hint at all of alien things.

> as if this building and what remained of the sunken city beyond
> it had been constructed by non-terrestrials.

TOM: Cheap alien construction! See what happens when you always go with
the lowest bidder?

> Professor Shrewsbury cautioned us before we landed.

CROW: "The next person who calls me 'Booze-berry' is going to get
slapped."

> "I believe Sereke's story to be essentially true,"

MIKE: "Except for all the parts about scary things."

> he said, "and I have no hope that this attack will seal the
> opening or destroy its guardians.

TOM: Then why the blazes are you bothering???

> "We must therefore be prepared to flee at the slightest suggestion
> that something is rising from below.

CROW: "Gentlemen, this island could belch at any moment."

> "We need not fear anything other which might appear;

MIKE: So if flying saucers start dive-bombing them from above, that's
okay?
TOM: You really need to stop applying logic here, Mike.

> "the stones will protect us from them; but if He who waits

CROW: Estragon?

> "dreaming below rises, we dare not linger. Let us therefore lose
> no time in mining the portal."
> The surface of the island was cloying. The pale green mists
> which continued to hang about the island

TOM: Get a job!

> were humid and faintly malodorous, an animal-like smell which was
> neither a musk nor a pungeance, but a cloying, almost charnel
> smell.

CROW: Maybe Brain Guy zapped Bobo there.

> We worked rapidly. The aura of dread which clung to the island
> heightened steadily, apprehension of some impending horror
> increased; there was a mounting tension among us,

ALL: We get it!

> despite the fact that Professor Shrewsbury

CROW: Was playing his Lawrence Welk records.

> maintained a ceaseless vigilance at the very threshold of the
> yawning cavern,

MIKE: Oh no...(yawns again)

> ingress to which was afforded by the broken doorway;

TOM: Thanks to its allowance of food stamps.

> it was plain to see that he expected danger from this source, if
> no other, though the very waters around the island were fraught
> with peril,

CROW: [fake British accent] At least let me have a little peril!
TOM: [fake British accent] No, it's too perilous.

> if Sereke's story were uncolored by imagination.

MIKE: Like this one.

> At the same time I was hideously aware of

CROW: Horrendous sentence structures,

> inimical forces which seemed almost personal; I felt them
> physically, quite apart from the chaotic confusion of my own
> thoughts.

TOM: Which he also felt physically.

> In truth, the island affected me profoundly,

MIKE: I'm not sure I'd ever use this guy and "profound" in the same
sentence.

> and its effect was cumulative, not only fear but also a deep
> depression of my spirits; not only apprehension but also a basic
> disorder of such a nature as to stir up within me a conflict, of
> the significance of which I was not cognizant, but a conflict
> which was disarmingly disorganizing,

CROW: And a redundancy that was not only redundant, but a general
pattern of repeating myself which was making me repeat myself, and also
a general repetitiveness which caused repetition, and...
MIKE: (Slaps Crow.)
CROW: Thanks, I needed that.

> so that I found myself at one and the same time eager to help
> and anxious to impede or destroy the work being done by my
> companions.

TOM: I know which one I'm going to choose.

> It was almost with relief that I heard the professor's abrupt
> cry, "He is coming!"

MIKE: (Singing) Ct-hul-hu is coming, to town! He knows if you've been
evil, he knows if you're a dweeb...
CROW: ...and your Doom will be Carmackian...
TOM: ...as he kicks your ass batrachian!
MIKE: Hold everything! First, Cthulhu's batrachian, not the narrator.
Second, "Carmackian" and "batrachian" look like they rhyme, but they
don't.
TOM: Way to kill the Christmas spirit, Mike.

> I looked up. There was a faint green luminosity showing far
> down the well of dark within the portal,

MIKE: Someone dropped one of those "glow-sticks" down there.

> just such a luminosity as I had seen in my dream. I knew that what
> would emerge from that maw would be akin to the being seen in my
> dream, also, a terrifyingly horrible caricature

MIKE: Of Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem.

> of an octopoid creature with the grotesquely gigantic half-head of
> a human being.

TOM: Half head, half foot.

> And for one instant I was moved not to follow the others, but
> to hurl

CROW: Now there's a sentiment I can agree with!

> myself down into that pit of darkness, down the monolithic steps,
> to that nether place in accursed R'lyeh where Great Cthulhu lay
> dreaming, waiting for his time to rise once more

MIKE: What is he, bread dough?

> and seize the waters and the land of Earth.
> The moment broke.

ALL: CRASH!!!

> I turned at Professor Shrewsbury's sharp call,

CROW: "Marco!"

> and followed, with the malevolence of that charnel place rising
> behind me like a cloud, and with the horrible conviction that I
> was marked as the especial

CROW: [As Max of the Freelance Police] Especial. Especial. I don't think
that's a word, Sam.

> victim of that ghastly being making its way out of the depths
> below that eldritch temple.

TOM: And the Stephen R. Donaldson award for greatest number of SAT
vocabulary words used in a single paragraph goes to: August W. Derleth!

> I was the last of them to reach the boats,

MIKE: (Sing-songy) You're the rotten egg!

> and at once we pushed off for the destroyer.
> The sun had not yet gone down,

TOM: Elton John comes through in the clutch!

> so that what took place on that awe-inspiring island

CROW: "That what took place?"

> was plainly visible to all of us. We had moved as far out into the
> sea as the wires to the explosives permitted.

MIKE: Exactly six feet.

> There we waited

TOM: To give Godzilla a chance to rise up and fight Cthulhu for us.

> upon Professor Shrewsbury's order to detonate the explosives, and
> we were accordingly given

CROW: Blindfolds and cigarettes?

> the opportunity to see the emergence of the ghastly being from the
> depths.

MIKE: And get its autograph.

> The first movement was of tentacles, which came oozing forth
> from the opening, slithering over the great rocks. Then abruptly
> there loomed within the portal, preceded by an emanation of green
> light, a thing which was little more than a protoplasmic mass,

TOM: Next on Fox--When Lime Jello Attacks!

> from which a thousand tentacles of every length and thickness
> flailed forth

CROW: Do you realize that if you replace the word "tentacles" with
"sentences", you're describing how this story was made?

> from the head of which, a single malevolent eye peered. A shocking
> sound as of retching,

TOM: Came from all the readers,

> accompanied by ululations and a fluted whistling

MIKE: Retching and ululations in C minor, by Prokofiev.

> came to us across the water.
> At that instant, Professor Shrewsbury gave the signal.

TOM: But Batman never showed up and we all died.

> The explosives burst with a tremendous concussion. What had
> survived that earlier explosion, including now the portal itself,
> burst upward and outward.

CROW: Someone left the Jiffy Pop on the stove too long.

> The thing in the doorway

TOM: Didn't we make fun of that movie, once?

> was torn open, and in a few moments, portions of the stone blocks
> fell upon it, further shattering it.

CROW: How can something that soft and gooshy "shatter"?

> But, chillingly, when the sound of the explosion had died away,
> there came to our ears still, the ululations and the whistling and
> the retching sounds we had heard.

MIKE: So we crossed "explosives" off our list of possible asthma cures.

> And there, before our eyes, the shattered mass of the thing from
> the depths was flowing together like water, _reforming_, shaping
> itself anew once more!

TOM: Oooh, a plot twist!
MIKE: This plot is so flimsy it would twist if someone coughed.

> Professor Shrewsbury's face was grim, but he did not hesitate.
> He ordered the boats returned to the destroyer at once;

CROW: Those late fees can really pile up.

> what we had seen lent strength and purpose to our arms, and we
> reached the _Hamilton_ within a very short time.

MIKE: Even considering that we'd been using the oars backwards the
whole time.

> General Holberg, glasses in hand, faced us on the top deck.
> "A shocking thing, Professor Shrewsbury.

TOM: "It's a good thing I'm drunk."

> "Must it be the weapon?"
> Professor Shrewsbury nodded silently.

MIKE: I really hate those LOUD nodders.

> General Holberg raised one arm aloft.
> "Now let us watch," he said.

CROW: His armpit stench is the weapon?

> The thing on the island was still growing. It towered now
> above the ruins, expanding into the heavens, beginning to flow
> down to the water's edge.
> "Horrible, horrible," murmured General Holberg. "What in God's
> name is it?"

TOM: The national debt?

> "Perhaps something from an alien dimension," replied the
> professor wearily. "No one knows. It may be even that the weapon
> is powerless against it."

MIKE: "But the 'Saved By the Bell' marathon has never failed!"

> "Nothing can resist that, sir."
> "The military mind," murmured the Professor.

CROW: It's true, nothing has ever survived the military mind.

> "How long will it take, General?"

TOM: "One second to push the button and six paragraphs to describe it
with mind-numbing repitition, sir."

> "The carrier should have had our signal by this time; the
> plane was loaded.

MIKE: As was the pilot.

> "It should not take longer than it takes us to reach the limit
> of safety."

CROW: So...next week, then?

> On the island a great black mass stood out against the
> setting sun,

CROW: Revenge of the 50 foot Hershey's Kiss.

> diminishing now only because we were moving so
> rapidly away from it. Presently the island itself was lost,

TOM: This story can't even keep its landmasses straight.

> and only the suggestive black mass remained.

MIKE: It's "Chef!"

> Overhead roared an aeroplane, making for the island.
> "There it goes!" cried General Holberg. "Please look away.

CROW: We're trying, believe me.

> "Even at this distance the light will be blinding."

TOM: What, is Donny Osmond going to smile at it?

> In a few moments the sound came, shockingly. In another few
> seconds the force of the explosion struck us like a physical
> blow.

MIKE: Complete with "WHAP" sound effects written on the screen.

> It seemed a long time before the General spoke again.

CROW: "Missed!!!"

> "Look now, if you like."
> Over the place where the Black Island had been loomed now a
> gigantic cloud, mushrooming and billowing skyward,

MIKE: How Cthulhu Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, today on
Oprah.

> of white and grey and tan colors, beautiful in itself to see. And
> I knew what the "Weapon" had been,

TOM: Wait...it was supposed to be a surprise?
CROW: If this guy were any denser, he'd collapse and form a black hole.

> remembering Hiroshima and the Bikini experiment.

MIKE: Which proved conclusively that during World War II, major
Japanese cities were lousy places to shoot the "Sports Illustrated"
swimsuit issue.

> "I rather think it cannot have survived that," said General
> Holberg calmly.

ALL: "NOTHING could have survived THAT!"

> I remember now, after all these months, how sober and grave
> Professor Shrewsbury was at our parting.

MIKE: We'd really chosen the wrong person to be the clown at our party
THAT day.

> I remember how he said something in sympathy,

CROW: "Sorry you're so stupid."

> and I did not then understand it,

TOM: Which kind of proves the Professor's point.

> but since then I have come to know that somehow, despite the fact
> that behind those black glasses he always wore, that strange and
> wise man had no eyes with which to see, and yet saw, he saw more
> than I myself knew about myself.

MIKE: And the fact that even a blind man could see it really tells you
something.

> I think this now often.

CROW: Keep practicing.

> We parted where we had met, at Singapore. From Singapore I went
> back to Cambodia, then to Calcutta, then to Tibet and back to the
> coast, from which I took ship for America,

MIKE: And I STILL couldn't find that place with all the kangaroos.

> driven now by more than curiosity about archaeology, by an
> insistence upon knowing more about myself, of my father and my
> mother, and my grandparents. We parted as friends, united by a
> common bond.

TOM: I told you, superglue is not a toy!

> Professor Shrewsbury's words had been hopeful, yet faintly
> prophetic.

MIKE: "The Cubs will win it all someday, I swear."

> Perhaps, he had said, _He_ had died in the atomic blast;

CROW: And it was actually Cthulhu who was parting from Blayne!

> but we must recognize, he had insisted, that something from an
> alien dimension, something from another planet,

TOM: Or at least another time zone,

> might not be subject to our natural laws; one could only hope.
> His work was either done or had gone as far as it could go,
> short of ceaseless vigilance to stop up temporarily every avenue
> to the open that might be attempted

MIKE: (bewildered) "every avenue to the open that might be attempted?"

> by Cthulhu or those who followed him, who worshipped him and did
> the bidding of the Ancient Ones.
> Because I alone, of the six of us, had no doubt.

CROW: The rest of them preferred the Go-Go's.

> I knew by an intuition I could not then explain that R'lyeh still
> stood in its depths, wounded but not destroyed.

TOM: Ooh goody! There's gonna be a sequel!
CROW: Kill me now.

> I went home to find out why I had had what I recognized as
> a feeling of kinship for the Deep Ones,

MIKE: And rechecked my birth certificate. Yup! Atlantis hospital,
R'lyeh.

> for the thing that lived in the sunken realm of R'lyeh, for
> Cthulhu,

CROW: a.k.a. "Mom",

> of whom it was once said and is still said, and will be said until
> the coming again, _"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl
> ftaghn"_.

TOM: At least until we stop trying to talk and eat Fluffernutters at
the same time.

> I went home to Massachusetts and discovered why my mother went
> veiled for most of her life,

MIKE: You looked in a mirror?

> to learn what it meant to be one of the Waites of Innsmouth,
> destroyed by the Federals in 1928 to wipe out the accursed plague
> which had come upon the inhabitants, including the Waites who were
> my grandparents and my parents.

CROW: Twist Ending alert! Twist Ending alert!

> For their blood flows in my veins, the blood of the Deep Ones,
> the spawn of that black mating in the South Pacific. And I know
> that I have earned their special hatred

MIKE: And ours, too.

> as a traitor to that blood, for even now, I feel the longing to
> descend into the depths

ALL: Go! Go!

> to make my way to the glory of Y'ha-nthlei

CROW: Gesundheit.

> where it lies in the Atlantic off Devil's Reef beyond
> Innsmouth, to the splendor of R'lyeh in the waters near Ponape,
> and even now I know the fear of going to them with the taste of
> treachery in my mouth.

TOM: This is a job for Listerine.

> At night I hear them calling, "Horvath Waite! Horvath Waite!"

MIKE: But are they calling with 1-800-COLLECT and saving me a buck
or two?

> And I wonder how long it will be before they seek me out and
> find me.

CROW: Either them or an angry mob of "Weird Tales" subscribers.

> For weeks after, I asked myself which one of us would be the
> first to be discovered. And today the papers brought me an answer.

MIKE: I'd been "outed" by the Boston Globe.

> "Gloucester, Mass.--The Rev. Abel Keane, a newly ordained
> clergyman, was drowned today while swimming near Gloucester. He
> had been accounted an excellent swimmer, but went down within
> sight of many other bathers.

TOM: Who all cheered.

> "His body has not yet been recovered."

CROW: Because it's all wet and yucky.

> Now I ask myself who will be next?
> And how long will it be in the endless progression

MIKE: Of this story?

> of days before those who serve Him will summon me to atonement in
> those black depths where Great Cthulhu lies dreaming, waiting upon
> his time to rise again and take possession of all the lands and
> seas

TOM: The property taxes ALONE will kill him.

> and all that lives within them, once more as before, once more and
> forever?

CROW: Because, naturally, Cthulhu would hold a grudge against a guy who
had serious doubts about the expedition in the first place, and
basically did nothing but watch other people fail to destroy him.
MIKE: Well, yeah! I HATE that!

===============================

(The text fades, mercifully. Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow return to the
SOL.)

CROW: That was one of the most hideous experiences of my entire life.
Excuse me while I relieve my frustrations by striking a target which I
shall choose, I promise, entirely at random. (Walks directly over to Tom
and hits him.)

TOM: Hey!

CROW: Don't blame me, blame my random number generator!

(Tom and Crow start fighting. Mike separates them.)

MIKE: Listen guys, it's bad enough we have to suffer through stories
like "The Black Island", okay? Let's remember that we're all in this
together and...

(The intercom buzzes)

MIKE: ...and that it's all Pearl's fault. (Switches on the intercom.)

(Scene switches to Castle Forrester. Somehow, there are only a couple of
hundred bananas left, and there are dozens of people racing around to
pick them up. With all the people, the place seems MORE crowded than
before. Bobo is back to his normal weight, and he's in the background
with Brain Guy, trying to keep some semblance of order as people are
unpeeling and eating bananas.)

PEARL: Good day, Mikey, Rustbuckets. I'm actually smiling. Do you know
why?

(Mike opens mouth and is about to speak.)

PEARL: Because I'm a genius, that's why. Oh--I know, my great intellect
has been established many times already, but sometimes...(she sighs,
preening to the camera)...sometimes I just outdo myself. (She points
down, and the camera pans down to show that Pearl is sitting on a HUGE
pile of cash. Camera pans back up.)

BRAIN GUY: (To random person in background) That's five bananas you've
eaten, so it's five dollars!

RANDOM PERSON: I gave you five.

BRAIN GUY: You gave me FOUR, see? (Pulls out dollar bills.) One, two,
three, four...five. (Pouts.)

BOBO: (To the crowd) And the lucky banana STILL hasn't been found!
Hurry, there are only about two hundred left!

MIKE: The LUCKY banana?

PEARL: (Barely able to contain her smugness.) Yes, that's right. We've
opened the castle to the surrounding countryside and convinced these
imbeciles that one of the zillion bananas Bobo ordered actually had some
kind of winning ticket inside it. A dollar a banana gets you a chance to
win the whole pool of money! Of course... (looks around carefully and
whispers) ...there IS no lucky banana, so guess who keeps all the money?

MIKE: You're a twisted, evil, vicious, cold-hearted person, Pearl.

PEARL: (Beaming, almost in tears) Thank you!

CROW: And why didn't we think of it first?

TOM: Yeah, there's gotta be SOMETHING on this tub we can raffle off.

MIKE: Now, wait a minute, guys! You can't get rich off the naive hopes
of millions of innocent people!

CROW: Why not, Mike?

MIKE: Because we're floating out in space. There's no one around to
fall for it.

TOM: Curse your logic!

(Crew is silent for a while.)

CROW: Uh, Mike...

MIKE: Yes, Crow?

CROW: One of the enormous piles of dirty laundry in my bedroom is
actually a LUCKY pile of dirty laundry! When cleaned, it'll reveal a
secret formula for getting rich!

MIKE: (Puts hands on hips in disgust. Then he thinks about it.) How
rich?

(There is a scream from the intercom. The SOL crew looks over and scene
switches to Castle Forrester.)

RANDOM WOMAN: (Shrieking) I found it! I won! I won!

PEARL: (Her face has gone dead white, whiter than Brain Guy's.)

RANDOM WOMAN: I'm rich! I'm rich! (She's jumping up and down and waving
the winning ticket. All the other random people are putting down their
bananas and leaving, disappointed.)

PEARL: (Her voice barely a whisper.) How?

BOBO: (Comes up behind Pearl, starts shoveling money at the lucky
winner.)

PEARL: Brain Guy?

BRAIN GUY: Yes?

PEARL: What are the odds of a lucky winning ticket naturally occurring
in a banana?

BRAIN GUY: Approximately sixty-eight quadrillion, three hundred and
fifty-one trillion...

BOBO: Oh, I can explain THAT! (Chuckles to himself and comes over.)

PEARL: (Getting a very nasty look on her face.) Oh?

BOBO: Of course! The way I see it, there HAD to be a lucky winner in
the pile SOMEWHERE, or the contest wouldn't have been FAIR!

PEARL: (Steam is starting to come out of her ears.)

BRAIN GUY: I think I'm going to go somewhere far away for a while.
(Exits stage right, fast.)

BOBO: I mean, we'd have ended up taking all these peoples' money, and
they wouldn't have even had a CHANCE to win! So I--very cleverly, I
might add--picked a banana at random and...

PEARL: (Turns from camera, starts walking towards Bobo.)

BOBO: ...and it wasn't easy sealing the banana back up, either...uh,
Pearl?

PEARL: (Picks up very large baseball bat.) Go on...keep talking.

BOBO: Uh, Pearl...you should be happy for the woman, I mean, she won a
lot of money! Uh...oh oh...(He runs off).

(Pearl, screaming, chases him off-camera as the lucky winner exits stage
left with a wheelbarrow full of money. End credits roll, with
traditional music.)

Stinger:

"It is toward Ponape from there, but not close to Ponape."