SFX: The Who's "Squeezebox" while credits roll over solarized footage of nude volleyball games and caber-throwing kilted grandmothers with celtic tattoos on their ankles. 54 sec., ending in the middle of a minor chord.


Narr:

My name is Buntaccio Stott, I am a man with a shiny badge, a black pistola and a leetle beetie brush with a magnificient lens attached to it.

I am a Crying Scene Imperator officer.

I am a deep fellow with a scarred past who invests the proceedings of my highly-motivated staff with monosyllabic and gruff noises of encouragement and sarcasm.

I see things others miss, guess things others know, and can find my favorite shows without consulting a TV listing.

I read atlases and Lancet for fun and have the social life of an intelligent walking stick.

I am a God among law enforcement and nobody understands that, not even my staff.

But we shall see what we shall see. And I see everything!

Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!


Token white girl with speech impediment:

Um, boss, we have a case.


Narr:

I know! And I found the clue that made it! He's going up the river!
He's gonna die! And I did it! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

Actually, he's already been let go. It turns out that we matched his DNA with four points of reference and the District Attorney's office needed five to make the case.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there...


Narr:

It has to be one or the other...

What! We had him! We matched his hair fibers within forty degrees of certainty, based on the percentage of Inuit albino males in the country, we matched the glass from the imitation Ming drinking tumblers that we found in his yacht's wet bar, we established that he had breathed refrigerated air from a leaky compressor in the meat-packing district of Little Saigon within the last twenty-four hours... What more did they want?


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

What-everrrrr. That was last episode, anyway. Listen, I have to tell you this before the commercial!


Narr:

Sorry. I was listening, but I have a congenital ear twitch that occasionally lends dramatic weight to otherwise boring parts of the script. Let me play with my sunglasses for a minute and then gaze intently at you....


SFX: Really loud badly played music. Poorly written commercial that you have to see to believe plays, followed by another. 162 secs.



T.W.G.W.S.I.:

As I was saying. We have another case. It's down by the docks, in the rising sun, where the cameras have to iris down otherwise our footage will white-out like an old "Hawaii Five-O" episode.


Narr:

So, with a burst of ominous Metallica-inspired Norteno Corrida music, we whisked to the Crying Scene.

A small white woman in a tight red dress was soaking a poor defenseless Kleenex brand tissue with her salt-infested eye droppings.


Token Ethnic Male with Bad Coiffure:

Boss, we found two victims and a possible perpetrator.

There's sign of a struggle and we found an incomplete set of Magic: The Gathering cards in the head of the 40 million dollar catamaran yacht we're using for a set this week.


Narr:

Okay, this is how it's gonna go down:

Put the EMTs on suicide watch, print that donut and tox screen that squirrel for foreign bodies.


T.E.M.w B.C.:

What squirrel?


Narr:

That one!

See! That's why I get the big bucks!


T.E.M.w B.C.:

Oh. Sure. That one.

Yeah, and that's why I get the explanatory lines that any fourth grader who'd read a Philo Vance novel would find superfluous.


Narr:

Watch it with those twenty dollar words. You don't want the viewer to take his eyes from the screen to tear the cellophane from his dictionary, do you?


T.E.M.w B.C.:

Actually, I do.


Narr:

Look, you... I've waited for this opportunity to star in a show where I get to stand around and look important...

SFX: "Raindrops are falling on my head", played by Dino, Desi and Billy


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

Ut-oh, he's starting to tear up!


T.E.M.w B.C.:

Ooo! I've been waiting for this opportunity ever since the pilot show!
You get the handcuffs, I'll find my warrant card!


Narr:

(tearbrimmingfully)

...for my entire career! I don't need the audience thinking! I just need them watching! I need the ratings! I need the Nielsens! I need the cable returns! I need this show and this show needs me! (sob) I am the show! (sob)

You wouldn't be working if me and the show didn't need people who look marginally pretty to stand around and not crack up at my deadpan wisdom!(wah)

You NEED....

SFX: "Dragnet" theme played by Red Hot Chili Peppers


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

You have the right to put a sock in it.

You have the right to rerun residuals.

Anything outside of the script will be used against you in nonbinding arbitration.

You are hereby charged with the crime of wet overacting.

If you wish to speak to an agent, one will be provided for you.


Narr:

No, no, no!

I'm the (waaah!) STAR!

Stephen! I'M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP!


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

Can I shoot him?


T.E.M.w B.C.:

Sure. It's got to lead to a better story arc than my gambling problem and that running gag that Hispanic lady has about holding conversations with the corpses.

SFX: BANG! tinkle



Narr:

Ah...

Sweet mystery of life...

At last I...

SFX: BANG! tinkle BANG! tinkle BANG! tinkle... whack, whack, whack... FING! CRUNCH! WHANG!


Narr:

You...! Uck...


T.W.G.W.S.I.:

Damn! Why didn't you remind me he was wearing makeup?


T.E.M.w B.C.:

Ah. Well. Anyway. You hungry?

"Two Sleepy People" played by the Bunnington Hill Nursery School Glee Club