MSTing: "Something In the String of G", with the short "The Sentence"
--- Part 2 of 8 ---
[OPEN ON: <Theater>. Gypsy, Scratch, Pearl (her head attached to giant Tom
Servo's body), and Magic Voice continue riffing the short "The Sentence".]
>Soon I would fill the room.
MADGE: I had presence! In my new hair!
>Lashing out as one tried
>to inject me again,
GYPSY: I told them that they had a hideous dress, that was months out of
season!
>I was mortified to see him go flying across the room
>and through window.
PEARL: Oh no, Sally Field's brother forgot which of them was the
Flying Nun!
>The room was filled with spectators. They all began
>to scream
ALL: LET'S GO, GIANT! <CLAP, CLAP!> <CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!>
SCRATCH: Should it bother me we clapped when we ain't got no hands?
PEARL (resentful): Would you like to served with fries, or cole slaw?
>and run for the door. I spotted Tony's Mother and Father.
>
>"Wait...Please...I did not kill your son. I loved Tony!"
GYPSY (as giant): He's the boss!
MADGE (as James Lipton): Yes, Tony Danza, who shined in such roles as Tony,
Tony, and of course, his most recent CBS sitcom, Tony.
>
>They turned and ran from me as though I was some monster. As I looked
>down, I thought that perhaps they were right. I was now over twice my
>height.
PEARL: See, this is good, because her stupidity is spread out.
>My clothes were suddenly straining for release. I turned to the
>remaining guards to try to explain, but they were all gone. A sudden
>burst of growth shot me up to 25 feet.
SCRATCH: Huh. The thug jug's got a vaulted ceiling, I guess.
>My tattered clothes pooled at my
>feet. I began to search for an exit.
PEARL: Ooh, start with "Exit 57"! Where HAS such belly-slapping tomfoolery
gone? And while you're at it, search for "The Clinic"! "Comic Justice"!
"Short Attention Span Theater"! "Comedy Product"!
MADGE: Bitter much?
>On my way here, leaving was not an
>option,
SCRATCH: The Apollo 13 engineers greet another Monday morning!
>so I had little idea which way was out. I crouched down to my
>hands and knees, and followed the path where I saw Tony's parents go.
GYPSY: Got married early, had a kid before I was ready.
>Soon the walls became too tight for me. My shoulders seemed to be
>jammed. All at once the wall crumbled around me,
ALL (chanting): TEAR DOWN THE WALL! TEAR DOWN THE WALL!
>freeing me, but also
>blocking my view. I decided to stand.
MADGE: In the place where I lived. I then faced north.
>I rose up and up. The roof of the
>prison below my head.
PEARL: There was probably some crashing sound and intensive structural
damage in between those events.
>I gazed around at my first view of the world in
>four years. I took a deep breath and raised my face towards the sun.
GYPSY: Owee! My eyes!
>
>"There she is!"
SCRATCH (through a bullhorn): Miss America! Come out with your scepter up!
PEARL: Next up, the Hostage Negotiation competition!
>I heard at the same time I felt stings all over my legs.
MADGE: Yellow jackets. Nesting in the basement. Been meanin' to call
someone.
>I kicked my foot out, and the stings seemed to stop. The sounds I heard
>now were sounds of pain, and death.
GYPSY: Someone must be playing the new Korn CD.
>I had come to know these sounds well
>in the past few years, but it made me sick to think I had been the cause
>of them.
MADGE: (as weepy Col. Glenn Manning): What sin could a cujine commit in a
single lifetime...
GYPSY: You can't really slur a heritage that hasn't been established,
Madge.
MADGE: Oh, what? I'm supposed to wait for the author to give us her
background?
PEARL: As much as I hate to agree with her, Gyps?
>Leaping up and over the roof,
ALL: PUMAMAN!
>I landed in the prison yard.
>Some inmates were working, tending the landscape,
[All snicker.]
SCRATCH (through bullhorn): All convicts clear the yard! No- not you
three! Thatch the lawn!Trim those hedges! Make a little bunny shape!
>when my abrupt fall
>shook the earth.
MADGE (giant, boomingly): I am Titan! Beyond the laws of man! Dispensing
justice as- (sees gardeners) Oh, hey, you're putting your tomatoes in!
GYPSY (gardener): Yeah, kinda early, but it's been so warm!
>I waved and leaped over the gates.
PEARL: Wheeee! This is fun, mommy!
>
>I was free....
SCRATCH (as guard, meekly as she leaves): Um... and don't come back? Or
you'll get more of the same?
>
>Now to find Tony's murderers.
MADGE: 1-800-USASEARCH.
PEARL: Is the ability to find anyone, anywhere in America, a power we
really want to bestow on the audience of Jerry Springer?
SCRATCH: Think about it, won't youse? Good night!
>
>* * *
PEARL: Oh, that's the rating Gene Shalit gives every piece of crap.
>
>Leaving the walls of the prison behind me was the easy part.
GYPSY (giant): But I couldn't walk away from myself.
>I walked
>through the township that borders the prison.
MADGE: National guard? Why bother?
>I felt the ground give way
>to my footfalls. Trying to gauge my height I guessed I was close to 100
>foot tall.
PEARL (giant): And judging from public reaction, invisible!
>The tree tops scratched at my bare thighs, I had no choice
>but to trample them down. It was so hard to get my bearings, when
>everything seemed so miniature. Finally I spotted a familiar looking
>cityscape.
SCRATCH: Cleveland!
ALL: RUUUUN!
PEARL: They'll make us watch Drew Carey!
ALL: RUUUUN!
>This was where I had last been living. I wondered who was
>living in mine and Tony's house now,
SCRATCH: Our house, if you will.
>and what happened to all of our
>things.
MADGE (giant): I should take a moment to hang out, relax... maybe stick
my toe in the pool! HA! I kill me.
>
>I slowly walked down our old street.
GYPSY (sings): All at once am I, seven stories high!
>The tarmac buckled and cracked
>between my toes. I knelt down in the street to peer in the window. I
>felt the buildings behind me explode as my ass bumped them.
PEARL: You know, there are no innocent bystanders, really.
SCRATCH: Nope, all victims of our own karma, pretty much.
>Inside my
>old home was Mary. Dear sweet Mary.
MADGE: Dear, sweet, bra stuffing, gold digging, revolving-door-bedroom Mary.
>My best friend for years.
PEARL: We had joy, we had fun, we had hooters out to here!
>What was
>she doing in my house ? I sat down and watched her inside.
SCRATCH (as motorist behind giant): <HONK, HONK!> Move your ass, lady!
Whoap, that is your ass. Heh. Sorry about that.
>I could feel
>the music from her stereo vibrate the house and surrounding ground.
MADGE: Ironically, it's Little Feat!
GYPSY: Or maybe, Big Brother and the Holding Company?
MADGE: Could be!
>That
>explained why she hadn't heard me approaching. The house looked the same
>as it had when I was sent away four years ago. It looked as if she had
>kept all my things. I peered in closer. She was wearing my clothes !
>Something began to gnaw at my insides.
PEARL (as giant, groaning): Oh, man! I shouldn't have eaten that White
Castle.
SCRATCH: Heh! Yeah, their burgers are somethin', huh?
PEARL: Burgers?
>I closed my eyes and replayed the
>events leading up to Tony's murder.
GYPSY: Tony got shot, and died. Hmm. Maybe I should go back a little
further...
>
>Mary had called and asked Tony to come over and fix her car.
MADGE (Mary, huskily): The interior lights go out whenever I close the
door!
>She was
>always calling and asking him to help her.
PEARL (Mary, huskily): I've forgotten if I'm a 38D or a 42C.
>I felt so proud to be with
>someone so generous with his time. But that night he was acting weird.
>Mumbling about Mary finding her own life and her own friends.
GYPSY: Well no wonder! His acting coach was David Duchovny!
>Now
>looking back I see how ominous those words were. It was soon after that
>I saw the gunman enter from out of the shadows of the dining room and
>point his gun at me.
SCRATCH: Ya know? They really shouldn't have developed the grassy knoll.
PEARL: I tend to agree with you there.
>I had screamed and Tony came running in the room
>just as there was an explosion of light. Time froze. The look of
>confusion on Tony's face would be forever etched in my mind.
GYPSY (Tony): Uh....am I dead now? I thought I was dead before.
SCRATCH (Tony, death rattle): I... defied plausibility for ya, babe.
Arrrgh...
>I heard
>screams, before I realized they were mine.
PEARL (giant): NO! You can't die before telling me what my name is, dammit!
>I looked to the gunman and
>clearly saw his face as he wiped the gun off and dropped it.
SCRATCH (gunman): Oh! Um, you won't tattle, will ya? Promise?
>
>Now gazing into my old house watching Mary among my things wearing my
>clothes, I felt ill.
GYPSY (giant): Ugh. That handbag, with THOSE shoes?
>Mary seemed to be talking, or shouting, to someone.
>I lowered myself to get a better view. My stomach rose up in my throat.
>It was HIM.
MADGE: Senator Phil Graham!
SCRATCH (as Senator Graham): The Equal Rights For Giants Bill will pass
over mah cold, dayd, body! Oops.
>
>Rage took over. I ripped the roof off of my house
GYPSY: Yeah, tear the roof off the joint!
MADGE: Rock this mutha!
SCRATCH: Cum on, feel the noize!
MADGE: We're all stars now, in the dope show!
PEARL: Eh. I agree with the "dope" part.
>and reached to snatch
>up that man. Angrily I grabbed at him, but he ran into the next room.
PEARL (giant): What the- man, he wriggles like a bloodworm!
>With a flick of my finger I collapsed the walls and saw him trembling in
>the corner. Mary's screams filled the air, blasting over the loud music.
MADGE (laughing): Oh, so Mary's screams are louder than a giant's
footsteps or a house being knocked down!
>
>"Who the hell are you?" He shouted to me.
ALL (sing): I'm Henry the Eighth, I am! Henry the Eighth, I am, I am!
>
>"Why don't you ask your little friend Mary ?" I snickered as I reached
>in and grabbed the both of them in my fist.
SCRATCH (stoned): Whoa, leave the Floyd on, man. It's "Crazy Diamond
Part XXVI".
>"Now I give you both about
>10seconds to explain to me what happened here four years ago."
GYPSY (Mary): Well, GOPAC called to divert another $35K to the direct mail
campaign...
MADGE (giant): No! I mean Tony's murder!
>
>"You are suppose to be dead!
PEARL: Oh, someone has to learn when you "suppose", you make a "sup" out
of "po" and "se"!
>We were watching the news when they said
>they had begun the execution.
[All snicker.]
MADGE (Mary): Conveniently, we turned it off immediately and missed all
that female growth malarkey!
>How did you get to be this size?"
GYPSY (giant): Oh, I have my ways of twisting the laws of biology, Mary!
>Mary
>again trying to steer the conversation. How I remembered that little
>irritating habit.
[All cackle.]
SCRATCH: The sad thing is, so few friends address these issues before one
of them mutates into a vengeful manifestation of a wrathful god?
PEARL: Mm. And at that point? It's too late. The damage is done.
>
>"Mary, tell me who your little friend is. And I suggest you tell me
>now!"
>
>"This is my new husband Lew.
ALL (as Mary Tyler Moore): MIS-ter GRAAAANT!
>We were married last year."
MADGE: In a very touching ceremony. Even the stripper cried.
>
>"Lew, nice to meet you " I began to squeeze my fingers around his waist.
SCRATCH: Huh, yeah, great. Bumbling incompetent hitman, he gets a name.
Main leadhundred-foot tall central character heroine we're supposed to
give
a crap about, however...
>My anger boiling just below the surface. "Maybe Lew can tell me why he
>murdered my love and let me rot in a jail cell." His bones began to snap
>inside my grasp.
>
>"Tell her ! She is crushing me!"
GYPSY (Mary): Oh, you do it! You're closer!
>Lew struggled to break my tight grip.
>His puny fists pounding on my fingers.
MADGE (giant): Smell my finger, Lew!
SCRATCH (Lew): Hey, believe me, I do! Couldn't your last request have been
for a Handi-Wipe?
>His legs were kicking out wildly
>as he tried to get away.
>
>I slowed the pressure long enough to let Lew speak. "Maybe you would
>like to tell me then Lew, since your little wife here seems to be
>speechless."
>
>"She made me do it! She told me just one person would be in the house, and
>to shoot that person. I had you in my sights
GYPSY: In his sights? He was right in front of her!
>when he came into the room.
>Too late, I had already squeezed the trigger. I watched you from the
>window for a long time after.
PEARL: So you're saying, when you shot Tony, you reached your quota?
>Then I heard sirens,
GYPSY: -and driven mad with desire, I steered my boat to the rocks!
>and knew I had to get
>away right then."
>
>I turned my gaze to my best friend Mary. "Explain!"
[All guffaw. Gypsy shakes her head.]
>
>"You had everything I wanted. Tony, this house, your job, which is mine
>now, too.
PEARL (giant): What, at the same salary?
MADGE (Mary): Nah, 5% reduction, plus no dental. But I do get flextime.
>I wanted you out of the way. But as always Lew fucked things
>up.He killed Tony. I had been watching from the shadows across the
>street.
SCRATCH (Lew): What? Man, I thought you trusted me. Our whole relationship
is a lie, isn't it?
PEARL (giant): Hello? Giant here, crushing you?
SCRATCH: Oh, right. Sorry.
>As soon as I heard the gunshot I called 911.
MADGE: Got a busy signal, called again, got disconnected...
> With Lew locked
>away for murder and you dead I knew Tony would turn to me, and I would
>have everything I deserved."
GYPSY (giant, sighing): You know, Mary, I'm not mad. I'm just...
disappointed.
>
>"Everything you deserve. Well my friend I do think that is exactly what
>you will get!" My fist began to tighten around my two tiny captives.
ALL: Aw, no! No!
GYPSY: Don't you dare! Don't you-
> I felt and heard the screams.
ALL (crying): EWWWWW!
>It felt strange, but it felt right.
PEARL (bobbing in her seat from fury): Oh yeah? Well FEEL THIS, masochist!
MADGE: Aw, man, this makes "The Incredible Melting Man" look like
"Teletubbies"!
>I
>continued to compress them, the screams stopped. A warm gooey pulp oozed
>between my fingers.
SCRATCH: Think the author made meatballs after this? Or a nice Salisbury
steak?
GYPSY: Bluch!
>It felt so exciting. I was actually enjoying the
>feeling of power and control I had gained.
GYPSY: Oh, if you're so in control, try putting them back together!
>
>Standing, I wiped the gore from my hand,
MADGE: Hope it's Tipper.
GYPSY: No you don't.
MADGE: No I don't, no.
>and kicked the remains of the
>house. Pieces of it flew high into the air. Suddenly I felt drained. I
>began to wonder if I would be this size forever.
SCRATCH: Well, no. I mean, the story's gotta end sometime. The author's
not immortal or anything. I hope.
>If not I would be
>returned to jail.
GYPSY: Can't she argue severe mental anguish?
PEARL: Ours doesn't count.
>Shivering at that thought, I knew I could no longer
>stay in this town, or even this state. I began walking.
SCRATCH (TV announcer): Fugitive Giant! Wanted for a murder she didn't
commit! And a couple of really gruesome ones she actually did, plus a
half million in property damage, and she may have left a family or two
homeless.
>Being more
>careful of the houses in my path than I had before. All the hate I had
>seemed to be released. I walked for hours. Finally I came upon a large
>lake, that looked custom made for my bath. I lowered my body into the
>cool water.
MADGE: And, since it was Lake Erie, her flesh dissolved instantly!
SCRATCH: It felt strange, but it felt right!
>The mud soothed my warm flesh as I closed my eyes, relaxing
>for the first time in many long years.
[Pearl-vo, Scratch, and Gypsy rise to leave the theater.]
PEARL: Yeah, you've committed two gruesome murders, your soul is damned
for all eternity, but at least you got yourself a spa outta the whole
deal!
GYPSY: So anybody got any questions for the author?
SCRATCH: Yeah, I think I got one. (screeches) EXPLAIN!
/ * \... = 2 =... > 3 <... [ 4 ]... ( 5 )... | 6 |...
[OPEN ON: <SOL Bridge>. Pearl-vo and Scratch are huddled over a diorama of
a house and its exterior street, with various figurines in place.]
PEARL: OK. So the gunman is outside the house?
SCRATCH: No, no, Miss "EXPLAIN!" saw him in the shadows of the dining room.
PEARL: But he watched her from the window!
SCRATCH: Well... maybe, from the inside part of the window?
MADGE: Well, wherever he was, Tony wasn't in the room, or Lew would've seen
she wasn't home alone as he maintained.
SCRATCH: Right. So Tony, using his Kreskin-like extra-sensory perception,
leaps from another room into the path of the bullet, saving the tiny
giant's life, and discouraging Lew so much he forgets to kill the
witness.
PEARL: Right.
[All look at each other for a beat.]
ALL (screaming, on top of each other): WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR
FREAKIN' MINDS EXPECTING US TO BELIEVE THIS-?!
[Suddenly the bridge goes dark. Alarms buzz, and sirens flash. ]
GYPSY (entering): Sensors detect a large, ungainly lump of poorly defined
matter off the port stern! It could be Pearl's body!
PEARL: Oh thank- (stops) hey!
GYPSY: Cambot! Rocket number one!
[INSERT: A shot of blank space.]
GYPSY: Number four?
[INSERT: A shot of blank space.]
GYPSY (resentful): Ooooo... fine. Number nine! God forbid we should change
our routine around here!
[INSERT: A huge suit of space armor is floating in the cosmos.]
GYPSY (over insert): Engaging tractor beam! Preparing to take flotsam aboard!
[CUT BACK: <Bridge>]
MADGE: So Scratch. Cable television. Hell produces most of that, right?
SCRATCH: Eh. Just "South Park". Know who does the voice of Cartman?
Granny Clampett! 124 years young.
PEARL (impressed): Really!
[PAN over to the left as the alien suit is brought in. Huge, foreboding,
like a battletech robot without a head.]
GYPSY: Oh, my stars!
SCRATCH: Um... Pearl's body is bigger than I remember.
GYPSY: It's of an alien technology way beyond our comprehension!
PEARL: Huh. So my head would go there, then?
[The robot's arms come to life, startling Scratch and Gyps. They take hold
of the globe containing Pearl's head, and lifts it off Giant Servo's
body. ]
PEARL: Wow, and it's self-serve, too!
GYPSY: Pearl! Get away!
[The robot lowers the globe to rest where its head should be.]
PEARL: Oh, calm down, ya nervous Nellies. What could possibly go wrong?
MADGE: Why would anyone say that?
[The globe is set onto the body, and immediately is illuminated by red
light. Pearl's expression wipes to become blank and menacing, and her
voice is booming and mechanical.]
APOCRYPHA:
[Gypsy ducks beneath the desk.]
[CUT TO: <Spinning logo>. Off-screen, we hear, SPROING!, and the revving
engine of across-town bus. Apocrypha grunts, unable to hold it
over
her head.]
APOCRYPHA (voice over): AW, FUDGE.
[SOUND FX of a cross-town bus crushing an alien robot. The spinning logo
shot shakes at the impact.]
[Commercials.]
--- End Part 2 ---
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