The Dimwit Zone: "Twelve angry maids home from school without a cause flag down a streetcar named 'Fred' in the middle of a long
Created | Updated Dec 23, 2003
Batten down your daughters and enlist your sons.
We here at IPR, YFITA, don't have a problem with free association as long as it doesn't cost us anything.
Unfortunately, we have to associate unfreely with various sorts who run around with their hands out, like, um, for instance, 'writers'.
Now, generally, those who can follow a certain basic format can have a go, while those who don't, can't. It is kinda that simple.
Turn over a rock in any paddock or vacant lot and you will find a writer. Order take out or hire a removal van and you will find a writer behind the wheel or on the phone or behind the counter.
We here at IPR, YFITA, have certain protocols when it comes to writing. If we don't like you, your work will have to be that much better if we are to use it. Also, you have to accept that mere acceptance of your work does not guarantee we will use it, or that we will use it in the form in which you originally intended it to be used.
Just because your mum or some tart down at the reading service says you are the 'next Ibsen' does not mean that we necessarily agree or remember who the B.H. this "Ibsen" is. And that does not mean we want a bunch of pedants ringing us up or winging off post cards telling us who "Ibsen" is. If we really needed to know, we suppose our engineering lecturer would have told us or the Tea Lady would have known when we asked her.
Which leads us to the piece we are about to broadcast. It seems that one of the senior Boars of Directors has a niece...
who has a boyfriend...
who has a son...
who is a writer...
who works for a Vietnamese Laundry in deliveries...
who has written a "script"...
which has found it's coffee-stained, dog-eared-paged way to our in-box with appended instructions from the certain Boar of Directors that he never hear of it again.
Since we are almost absolutely certain that he never listens to any of our programming in the first place, we have decided that the best way to to deal with this potential dilemma is to just get it out of the way thusly.
We now present "Twelve angry maids home from school without a cause flag down a streetcar named 'Fred' in the middle of a long, hot, summer while a cat fiddles on a hot tin roof during the State Fair in Oklahoma."
SFX: 42 seconds of the Ericcsson Memorial High School Swimming Band playing Band Director Emeritus Aaron Aaronson's "We Will Fight Them on The Field, We Will Fight Them In The Parking Lot, We Will Burn Their Homes and Salt The Earth and Make Their Descendants Take Wood Shop" at 68 degrees Fahrenheit during a small indoor squall at the Olympic-sized wading pool of the Ericcsson County Rec Center, June 12th, 1980
Narr:
The microphone pulls back to allow the sounds of a small flotilla of Dutch midget submarines to engage in a synchronized routine involving a rather suprised Orca.
Orca: (singing to bagpipe, electronic accordion and out-of-tune calliope accompaniment, but not in the same room)
I told my agent I would not do commercials,
I told him I would not do anything involving humor
at my species,
I told him I would only do legitimate
aquatic
theatre!
Narr:
Two of the subs accidently collide with a Scottish MP waterskiing on antique snowshoes. The Orca begins to laugh uncontrollably.
Orca:
Blurb, blurby, blurp, blah, ha, ha, ha!
Blib, blorb, blah, hap, hab, hurk, hurp!
Narr:
I'd say that's enough of that. Show of hands?
Cast and crew raise hands.
Orca swims off to find other and more lucrative work.
SFX: 32 seconds of the noon train leaving Houston in a light drizzle with smog coverage expected to increase before five.
Narr:
Time and tides wait for no man, so here is a chorus of young women in tattered tartan macs, tap-dancinging their way into your cerebellums while singing:
SFX: sound of rather sloppy tapping by a dozen long-legged female jockeys who are accompanied by a twelve tone serial orchestral track taped on a small damaged Nagra during a winter squall
Chorus:
Where's the guitar player
when you need a solo?
This orchestra doesn't have one.
Why? Why o why!
We've rehearsed for a day and a half,
Trying to get these Buzby Berkeley steps right,
laying with epsom salts and wet towels half the night.
We have practiced and practiced,
but we'd rather associate with horses
than choreographers!
Narr:
Then, an actor pretending to be the director leaps in the middle of the tilted cutting board the dancers are on. He clutches a tattered script and a megaphone:
Director:
Elephants!
That's what you lot are!
I've poured my soul and my heart and my wallet and a gallon and a half of paregoric into this show!
I've taken the playwright's inspiration,
raked it over the coals,
and paid the best rewriters in the business
to bring you the finest all-singing, all-dancing, all-breathing
revue that Western man and his wife
have ever seen!
And what do you do with my time,
attention, devotion and inspiration?
You clump around like Morris Dancers!
Like North Carolina Clog Dancers!
Like the sick, lame and lazy parade at Ft. Ord!
Get with the program, ladies!
SFX: eighteen thunder sheets tuned to thirds banged in an arpeggio that segues into the next song
Narr:
Then our hero pops out of the wings in a hang glider, clutching roses, chocolates and small stuffed furry creatures from the local fast food concession:
Hero:
Desist, you varlet!
Each one of these is a starlet,
in the firmament of my heart!
Chorus:
Oh, look, Stage Door Felix is here!
Though he can be a bit of a creep,
given a choice between him and the director,
it's Felix we'd rather keep!
Director:
Security!
Remove this interloper!
Narr:
An infamous comment which brings on the award-winning dance of the Security Guards!
SFX: Banjo and Accordion duet plays Varlet Purloin's "Dance of the Security Guards" in G minor in 11/32nc time
Security Guards: (dancing madly)
We are the guards from down the block,
normally we guard construction.
Tonight we have different job,
though it seems to defy definition.
We've been told to guard Security,
that's what they said we should do,
but while we've searched the building,
from flies to the lady's loo,
we can't find Security,
and we hope that we aren't sued!
We've checked the rosters and the sign-in sheets,
we've interviewed all, both cast and crew,
but try as we might,
and halloo as we do,
we've beat our heads against the wall,
and haven't any clue!
Has anyone seen Security?
Does anyone know what she looks like?
If you do see Security,
please point out the sight!
Narr:
At which point the entire audience, cast and crew tear the fire curtain down and recite the soliloquy from Ibsen's "Jullia, I'm sorry I ate the Seagull in the Dollhouse!"
