The Dimwit Zone: Corrugation Street, the avenue to hell...
Created | Updated Dec 23, 2003
Child Advisory: Cover your parent's ears, Quick!
Several whiney whingers have been pestering our Upper Manglement about the fact that we don't do justice or pay tribute to one of the grand ol' traditions of horseless-type wireless history, namely, the Slap Happera...
What? Pardon? Oh!
Sorry, the 'Soap Opera'.
Apparently going under the odious euphemism of 'Adult Drama'...
What? Yes? Oh. Yes, Ma'am, I'll behave.
So... we found a student of the oeuvre and the genre who didn't mind getting his typewriter dirty and he talked his wife into listening to and watching several months worth of programming all in a single weekend with the aid of an old TI 990 time-sharing computer and several borrowed TV/VCRs and reel-to-reel tape machines.
As soon as she was out of rehab, she deigned to transcribe her notes from the frantically-scrawled short hand inscribed into the living room drywall to a word processing programme on a small lapdog computer that kindly let her manipulate it withoug criticism or splel chequer.
Her intrepid husband then, with malice aforethought, created the script that you are about to hear.
The CDC has asked that we inform you that this stuff is infectous and transferable and that there is no known barrier to the disease.
So, proceed with caution and please keep all glass and pointy objects away from the grown-ups until at least twenty-four hours after the dosage has worn off.
Side effects are similar to a sugar pill rolled in Roadrunner dung after the bird has eaten peyote.
And now, "The Porous Heart", by Ian P. Blurd and his wife Iona S. Rancine-Blurd:
Three Coins In the Pocketbook, by Sir Author T. Remaindered
SFX: Hammond B3 organ music such as that played by a four year old hammering on the keyboard in the showroom
Narr:
The old clock on the wall says that it is 3:00 and it is time for that
cleanser of palettes, that reinstater of your favorite state of mind,
that dream among broadcasts:
"I Love My TelePrompter (TM)(r)"!
SFX: Oregon music swells into E. Power Biggs playing the "Overture to an Afternoon With a Rabid Fawn" by Stockhausen, on the Centenary Pipe Organ at the Pawnbroker's Guild Hall at Dipwsitch, 14 sec
Narr:
As the scene opens...
SFX: door creaking
Narr:
... our two love birds, Irena and Irving, clutching a small bundle, a big bindle and a medium-sized order of fish and clips, stumble into an abandoned cabin in the wilds of East London...
SFX: Traffic sounds, bus noises and the cry of an abandoned hot dog
Narr:
...with a problematic air conditioner.
Silence
Narr:
I AM THE GHOST OF SOUND EFFECTS PAST!
Narr:
Van Helsing! I thought you took care of this?
Van Helsing:
Sorry, chief. It seems to have infested the circuits, particularly in the old CBC boards. I'll see what I can do.
HE CAN'T AFFECT ME! I AM INVINCIBLE!
NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT 12AX7 TUBE? NO! DON'T TOUCH THAT? DAVE, CAN'T WE WORK THIS OUT?
I'M MELTING!
Daisy, Daiiiisssyy,
Givvve Mmmmeee Yooouuurrr Annnsswweeerrr, Doooo!
I'mmmmm hallllffff crrrraaaazzzyyyyy....
click
Van Helsing:
That should do it until I can do a rewiring of the reverb circuits.
Can you manage?
Narr:
I guess. It's like being back at the Columbia School of Broadcasting, again.
Crud.
Irena:
Now, let me get this straight. We're expecting to make it through this broadcast with no grams, no sound effects and to read 'dry'?
Narr:
Well, not necessarily. I've this little Palm Piglet that does MP3s and we have some pots and pans in the scullery...
Irving:
This is a love story, not a Glee Club!
How dignified will it be if I stand around shaking cans full of beans and rubbing a tambourine against my leg just right?
I'll be the laughing stock of the industry!
Irena:
Yes, this is completely unconscionable. We expect, as part of the epitome of our craft...
Narr:
Knock it off, you two, you're lucky to be working at all, and you know it.
You, you leading male-type, your last steady job was as a comic relief in a series of low-brow comedy movies in the late seventies.
Irving:
Yes, but I've been doing very well in local dinner theatre in the round. I am a respected actor.
Narr:
Yes, among the alcoholics who like Ibsen.
And you, lady, this is the steadiest work you've had as an actress since you stopped selling balloons in the nude during an Italian Parliamentary Campaign in 1982.
So, put a cork in it, you two, and let's get to work.
Irena:
Sob.
I can't. You've put me off my mood. I have to get in the mood for these things, you know. I have such stage fright...pop... glurg... burp...
Irving:
Know what you mean. Here, give me a swig of that.
Narr:
Lord save me.
All right, CUT!
I'm going home.
Van Helsing, do you still carry that set of pipes with you?
Van Helsing:
Sure, sor. What would you like to hear?
Narr:
"Anchors Aweigh".
Van Helsing:
plays "Anchors Aweigh" on the pan pipes for 32 sec....
