Season 2 Episode 9 — Cheese Gone Bad
Cheese Gone Bad
In which we learn the backstory of how Gorgon Zola unexpectedly shifted from a fine, upstanding and moral citizen — to one of the most dreadful and corrupt beings in the Multiverse. And we'll also get to meet an energetic, although somewhat misguided rodent, who shares some very useful information with our heroes.
Check out the full Techni-Text™ version of the episode below!
Season 2 Episode 9: Cheese Gone Bad
Opens to Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Yuri: Guri, if you could finish up with your dirty deeds and come out of there sometime this karflugon, we’re having a little trouble finding the wormhole passageway back to our own universe.
Guri: Sorry, Captain… when nature calls, it calls… when you gotta go, you gotta go… sorry, C.C., I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject for you.
Shipward: C.C. can’t hear you. He looks to have passed out due to his paruresis a little while ago. Dennis is carrying him now, with Hank trailing behind.
Yuri: A case of the blind leading the blind it seems. But yes, before we help them with the search, we should discuss this delicate subject, Guri, of your being the murderer of our friend Roquesy’s father, back in our universe.
Guri: He’s your friend, Captain. I haven’t quite taken to the lofty Gorgon prince like you have.
Yuri: Yes, well, be that as it may, I’m not quite sure how to tell my friend that we-... that you killed his father. In fact I’d rather not.
Guri: Well of course you’d rather not.
Yuri: I don’t enjoy conflict.
Guri: That’s well established.
Yuri: Telling him the truth could start a war!!
Guri: Or it just might set us free, Captain. Sometimes the truth has a way of doing that.
Yuri: I have no idea what you are talking about, Guri.
Guri: Well… maybe Lord Roquefort isn’t so keen on his family’s ways. He was never exactly the world conquering type, lounging about the casinos of Fanshooey. Maybe he’d understand.
Yuri: That’s quite a risk to take, Guri. I think there could be another way. But here we are, launching right into the story line, when I haven’t even welcomed our listeners to another episode -- Episode 9 of Season 2 -- of Greetings Lurflings, the podcast that is sweeping the multiverse off its feet… if a multiverse had feet that is. I guess a multiverse does have feet… it has everything!!
Guri: Everything… and nothing.
Yuri: No, I think it has everything. Don’t listen to him, folks. I’m your host, Captain Yurishi Knucklesbreath, commander of this exploratory mission of the Meeporpian Royal Space Navy. And this blithering idiot to my side is my distant second in command, Gurishi Peoples-Jones-Stillman. How is it you have three hyphenated last names, Guri?
Guri: Well, a couple of my tree mothers wanted to keep their maiden names.
Yuri: I see.
Guri: And if I ever have kids with wives who want to keep their names, well… you can see how unsustainable the hyphenated name practice could be…
Yuri: You won’t ever have children, Guri. Too many proton blasts to the baldersacks have seen to that.
Guri: What?? How dare you, Captain?!
Yuri: Well, I was always aiming for your frontal lobes! I didn’t mean too! Just a few errant blasts!
Guri: That’s it!! I’m filing a formal grievance with high command. Shipward!!! Warm up the embroidery machine!
Shipward: My eye, Guri. And while the machine is warming up, I think your companions could use some help out there in the desert.
Yuri: Oh fine… put them on the holo-screen and activate our external mics and speakers.
Guri: Ah, yes… we’re picking them up now...
Dennis: Are we seriously lost?? We hardly moved around at all since we got here, but all this shifting sand has got me confused.
Roquesy: Mmmm, well, I’m sure the passageway was around here somewhere. Damn this sand!! It all looks the same!!
Dennis: Well start digging, I guess… it’s gotta be somewhere around here...
Anonymouse (Eric): Hey watch it, ya giant oafs!!
Dennis: Wha-now?? Who said that??
Yuri: Who else is out there?? Is this a trick?? Should I lock myself in the war room again?
Guri: Captain, your cowardice is showing again.
Yuri: It is?? I thought I tucked that in. So embarrassing…
Guri: Let’s see who it is first before flying into a panic, perhaps?
Dennis: Show yourself!!
Anonymouse: Hey, keep your pants on… I’m right down here. I’m Anonymouse, ok? Fuggeddaboutit. But maybe you heard: I’m the sworn defender of all of the known universes from Gorgon Zola… or Benevolent Cheese as he’s known here!! But we’re not taking the cheese on that one, no sirree. Not buying it. There’s something amiss on dis here charcuterie tray, if you catch my drift!!
Yuri: Umm, what?
Dennis: Is that little sand mouse talking to us??
Roquesy: Mmm, yess, it seems that way.
Dennis: And why’s he talking like a New York mobster?
Anonymouse: Who else you think I’m talking to, you wackadoos?? Yeah, it’s Anonymouse Patucchi, at your service. I came up through the Brooklyn sewer system, so fuggeddaboutit, okay? But enough about me. Say what confluence of meaninglessness brought your odd assortment of characters together?? I see you’ve got some of my sworn enemies among you, the human “me”-ings, I like to call them, ‘cause everything is about them... but they’re always trying to invent a better mousetrap, like we all don’t got nothin’ better to do, am I right? Then you’ve got… great alley cats!! Sound the alarm!!
TAPPING SOUND OF MOUSE FOOT ON SAND
Yuri: What? What is it?
Anonymouse: Lord Roquefort, ya Sally!! Prepare to meet your maker on Planet Rennet!!
Roquesy: Planet Rennet!! Home of the Sacred Hall of Enzymes?? Birth Palace of the Children of the Curdle? How do you know about that place??
Anonymouse: Hey, fuggeddaboutit, I know everything about you and your royal Gorgon family!! Me and my merry band of nameless rebels have pursued you from one universe to the next!! Following every stinky trail, every pungent puff, every sceptered scent.
Yuri: While I admire your pluck, little one-
Anonymouse: Ey, who are you calling little, you microscopic Meeporpian!!
Yuri: Oh… right… well, I was looking at you on screen here, and in relation to the hummus beans, you looked small… but- nevermind that. Anonymouse, Sir, if I may address you as Sir?
Anonymouse: Well suit yourself there, hoss, but we eschew titles and honorifics. They are for the weak and insecure. Just like names.
Yuri: Well but you have a name…
Anonymouse: You pickin’ a fight with me, pea brain? I’ve got morsels of cheese stuck in my whiskers that are bigger than you.
Yuri: Ah, no… I didn’t mean anything by it, Anonymouse, sir… but I must ask you to spare our friend, Roquesy, from any hostilities. You see, our brief encounter here with his brother had the effect of shining a new light on the Gorgons for us. We see their capability for good, for creating a universe of peace and understanding.
Anonymouse: Hey, whaddya take me for, a haddock? A mindless and gutless fish? I’m sure it’s a diabolical Gorgon ruse of some sort!! It always is!!
Roquesy: Mmm, he’s right about that, at least in the universe we know.
Yuri: Right, but if we start with the supposition that all beings… well maybe not all beings… but at least the Gorgons and the Meeporpians, of course, and probably these hummus beans even… if we suppose that they all started out good, or without evil, perhaps we can pinpoint the cause or the moment in time when the seeds of evil were planted.
Anonymouse: Sounds like a lot of work, when my one million friends can get the job done right now with their ten million teeth!
Yuri: Shipward, ready the soup cannons should we be forced to defend our friend!
Roquesy: Mmm, now that you mention it, Yuri, there was a story my father always told that I believe was the turning point to which you were just alluding… when he went, in an instant, from good or mostly good to evil. Do we have time for a story, Anonymouse, or shall we head straight to fisticuffs?
Dennis: Oh, I vote for the story!!
Yuri: Fisticuffs and soup blasts, I might add, so just you watch it, Anonymouse!
Anonymouse: Ah geez, let me get out the world’s smallest violin… seriously, it’s mouse-sized, see, right here? I always carry it with me. It’s a stradivarius. One of a kind. Ya see, the Patucchi family goes way back… we knew the Stradivarius’s in the old country. So this is really something special, and let me get out the bow here and- aawww!! No!! Which one of you meatheads bent my bow!!
SQUEAKING SOUNDS from Jeff and Paul
Anonymouse: Was it you? Or you? Or you over there? It was him? Oh yeah… I know him… he’s a real clutz. He did that thing the other day… with the other thing… messed it all up!! Yeah, he’s gotta go. No not him… him!! Yeah, that one… him… with the mussed up fur...
Dennis: It sure sounds like some names would make it easier to identify-
Anonymouse: That’s enough outta you… I don’t need you human-splaining a solution to me, okay? We’ve remained a nameless band of rebels for this long… without any real problems, the no-name thing is working fine, except for during roll call… and when the mail comes. But anyway, fine… I guess we can hold off on the bloodshed for one story. Let’s hear it, ya Gorgon goon.
Yuri: Ah good. So what’s your story, Roquesy? What was the turning point for your father?
Roquesy: Mmmm, yes, well… as the story goes, when my father was a young man attending space college, he stopped into a Starzucks just off campus, and apparently they wrote down his name incorrectly on his cup, so after waiting for his coffee drink amidst a crowd of his peers, they announced that a drink was ready for “Moron Zola,” causing much laughter to erupt in the cafe, from those waiting for those drinks and the other seated customers and even some of the staff. Mortified, he at first refused to claim the drink, causing them only to repeat the call, even louder, causing more laughter, and not wanting to leave empty handed, my father finally was forced to claim the misnomered drink, whilst enduring snickers and young beings pointing at him.
Yuri: Ohh, that’s horrible. Most embarrassing.
Dennis: I do hate it when they mess up your name on the coffee cup.
Roquesy: Well, but there’s more to the story-
Yuri: Well I should hope so… that hardly seems like a life-altering moment...
Roquesy: My father was so upset and distracted by this humiliation at the coffee shop that he absent-mindedly let a notorious trickster named Farit lure him into an abandoned well, where he was forced to survive for 2 karflugons on the coffee drink and rock slugs. All his time down the well he was forced to confront the hurtful words “Moron Zola” scrawled hastily on his coffee cup. Understandably this caused a screw to pop loose, as the Earthian expression goes, I believe, and he’s been bent on universal domination by any means necessary ever since.
Yuri: Wow. Who knew how easy it is for cheese to go bad?
Dennis: Well now that is well known, actually, here on Earth, Yuri. Just ask anyone here… C.C., oh he’s comatose due to his shy bladder… Hank?
Hank: Oh uhh… yes, cheese goes bad quite easily.
Anonymouse: Well, you could also ask me or any of my nameless band of rebel mice… we are very familiar with cheese gone bad. I mean fuggeddaboutit.
Yuri: Great, so does this mean you’re willing to give our plan a chance, Sir Mouse? We Meeporpians can travel back in time and help the Starzucks barista correctly hear Gorgon Zola’s name and write it correctly on the coffee cup, thus averting thousands of karflugons of evil tyranny throughout the universe.
Anonymouse: Well, throughout your universe at least. That doesn’t help out the rebel cause throughout the rest of the multiverse. Besides, what’s to say your actions back in time won’t alter the course of history in countless different ways… you know, the whatchamacallit… the butterfly effect…
Yuri: Ah, well that’s why we always bring a giant, tamed Lurfian butterfly on all our travels through time, we keep him with us as we interact with creatures in the past, and we look for any effects our actions might be having on that butterfly. As soon as the butterfly reacts in any way, we cease what we are doing and return to our present time.
Dennis: Well now that’s smart. Sort of like a canary in a coal mine.
Guri: Do you mean this butterfly, Captain, in this giant container made of clear win-dow material-
Shipward: It’s called glass.
Guri: What? Yes, fine, in this giant glass container that we’ve lugged around from one mission to the next?
Yuri: Yes, that’s the one!!
Guri: Well, I think it’s quite dead, Captain. The butterfly is impaled on a giant metal rod going right through it’s thorax, and there’s this white card at the bottom of the glass with some lettering on it… I think it reads, Rhopalocera…
Shipward: Yes, it’s the Latin name of the species. Clearly this was taken from some museum exhibit or perhaps an entymologist’s laboratory on one of your previous trips to Lurf, perhaps.
Yuri: So the butterfly is not alive, is that what you’re telling me?
Guri: It’s quite dead, I’m sure of it.
Yuri: So all this time I’ve been feeding it-...
Guri: Well have you ever seen it move, Captain? Or eat anything you fed it?
Yuri: I thought maybe it was a picky eater. I was showing it tough love, thinking one day it would get hungry enough to eat the expired soup I kept feeding it.
Guri: Expired soup???
Yuri: Well, we can’t put expired soup into the soup cannons, you know that. It would gum up the works.
Guri: I feel bad for any other pets you may have had as a child.
Yuri: Well I never had any before this butterfly… so I suppose that’s why I didn’t know what to feed it... or that it was dead.
Dennis: Look, I don’t mean to interrupt what sounds like an important conversation, but I’ve got a comatose companion out here and another one who’s mostly blind and I’d love to get them both out of the desert wind here and into the cozier confines of a hole in the ground. Is there any reason we can’t continue this as we travel back through the wormhole? I think I found the entrance finally.
Roquesy: Mmm, well indeed you did!! I recognize my staff, which I left here to mark the entrance… I forgot I did that.
Yuri: Ah, excellent. So I believe we were trying to negotiate our way out of a confrontation between our new friend-
Anonymouse: Who shall remain Anonymouse!
Yuri: Yes… Anonymouse and Roquesy, who is indeed a Gorgon from a universe where they are not so friendly, but I think surely we can all agree that he is not the galaxy-conquering, planet-mining-and-crushing type like his father Gorgon Zola and brother Lord Camembert.
Anonymouse: Ey, but it’s in his blood, I mean, fuggeddaboutit!! Better safe than sorry, am I right??
Shipward: If our plan falls through, Anonymouse, we can lead you and your band of rebels right to the Gorgon princes back in our universe, as Lord Camembert is actively seeking out Yuri and Guri here to avenge his-
Yuri: Aaah-hemm!! AHEM!! Ixne on the urder-me ory-stay, Shipward!!
Shipward: Oh… what now?
Guri: (whispering) Shipward! We don’t want to mention-
Shipward: Oh.. right… sorry, I just meant that Camembert has a knack for showing up in our storylines, and-
Anonymouse: Ey, look, all right! I don’t need to get to know each and every one of your personal histories!! Frankly, it’s boring. If you’re saying you can help lead me and my rebel band to the Gorgon prince of darkness, Lord Camembert, in your universe, well that’s good enough for me. Saddle up, Cabelleros!!
Yuri: Oh my… they’re all coming with us? That’s quite a lot of mice.
Guri: Quite a big mischief of mice.
Yuri: They do look mischievous, yes.
Guri: No, Captain, that’s what a group of mice are called: a mischief.
Yuri: Are you sure? That can’t be right. We’ll ask Shipward to check his memory banks while we pause here for a word from our sponsors. This way we can also spare the listeners from the strife and agony we experience as we travel back through this wormhole here to our home universe…
Guri: Hopefully back to our home universe. Wormholes can be unpredictable, Captain.
Yuri: Oh well that’s just great. Then who knows where we’ll be when you return to us, fair listener. I guess we’ll all find out… after this word from-... oh look, how fitting… this word is from our sponsor turned character on this podcast, Hank Holbrook, of… well, you’ll see. Now… play the little music… to end the segment…
end of segment music
Hank’s Wholesale Holes Ad #20211124
Hank: Now uh, this here is a public service announcement from your favorite vendor and purveyor of all things hole-related, Hank Holbrook, of Hank’s Wholesale Holes. Now if there’s one thing you should know about me by now, it’s that I know holes. That’s why I got into the whole hole business. I can tell you about and hopefully sell you all types of holes. Swimming holes, black holes, pinholes, buttonholes, manholes, womanholes, rabbit holes, mouse holes, holes in socks, holes for a fox. Holes in your head, holes named Ted. All sorts of holes, too many to mention and some I shouldn’t mention… but really I want to talk to you today about one type of hole in particular, and that’s the wormhole. A wormhole, my friends, is not just another hole. It’s a whole ‘nother type of hole altogether now.
Dennis and C.C.: It’s a whole ‘nother type of hole.
Hank: What are you two doing here? This is a solo commercial spot, I believe.
C.C.: A thousand apologies, Hank… it’s just that we thought you asked us to say what you said again… you said, it’s a whole ‘nother type of hole, altogether now, so we all came in with “It’s a whole ‘nother type of hole.” You see, we’re always at the ready!
Hank: Weren’t you unconscious a minute or two ago?
C.C.: Oh was I? I don’t know… why, what happened to me in the podcast??
Dennis: Yeah, where are we? We were climbing through sand just a minute ago into a wormhole and now suddenly we’re in sound booth of some sort, it seems, with sound engineers waving their arms trying to get me to stop talking? Well why am I here then?
Hank: I uh, think they don’t want you breaking the fourth wall, Dennis.
C.C.: Oh, I see, this must be pre-recorded, so we’re not supposed to know what’s going on in the current episode. They might use this commercial in a bunch of episodes actually, so it’s weird to reference just one, Dennis… that’s why they’re mad at you.
Dennis: Well how’m I supposed to know what’s going on here? No one tells me anything!
Hank: Just roll with it, Dennis, is my recommendation… I just read the words they give me.
C.C.: They give you words to read? Both of you? They’ve never given me anything to say, I’m just winging it here… going on instinct I guess-
Dennis: That’s because you can’t read, C.C.
C.C.: Well now that’s true. Still… they must trust me a great deal.
Dennis: Either that or you’re not actually acting out a part.
C.C.: A part? Well why would I need to act out a part? This is my real life… selling saws, encountering little aliens, the roller coaster ride with Shirley, my shy bladder… but I undress. Hank, I believe we’re interrupting your commercial.
Hank: Or public service announcement, I believe it’s called. Yes, so getting back to wormholes-
C.C.: Hold on!! Did you say a wormhole?? I think I experienced one of those once… when I got some bad sushi.
Dennis: Aw, C.C., please… you’re gonna make us sick.
C.C.: Well I was sick. Hospitalized even. I lost 25 pounds in two days.
Dennis: We don’t want to hear it-
C.C.: They had to move my bedding into the bathroom, actually. I just tried to curl up on the toilet with my head resting on some pillows against the wall, because at any moment, it was like a firehose releasing all of my insides into- (muffled/distant) the bowl, the force of the propulsion would lift me up off the seat by maybe a foot or two-
Hank: Thank you, Eddie. Yes, let’s just keep his microphone off now.
C.C.: (in distance) Hey! Well you brought up the subject, Hank! You mentioned wormholes…
Hank: What I’m talking about, ladies and gentlebeings, is a wormhole that takes those who enter it from one point in space and time to another, sometimes in a predictable fashion, other times in a more random manner, which can be very dangerous and disconcerting for you, not to mention your friends and family, who had you here one moment and gone the next. You’ll typically find that your holo-communicators or other communication devices do not work from one side of the wormhole to the next, unless that is you happen to be using tin cans connected by a very long string that remains intact through the wormhole. Which is why I’m offering to you listeners today, a special offer on Hank’s Wormhole Can Communicators, which consist of--yes, you guessed it--two tin cans connected by a strong, sound-conducting thread that can stand up to even the most hairpin twists and turns through space and time. Dubbed “The Cans that Can!” by Better Homes and Asteroid Fields, Hank’s Wormhole Can Communicators are not only good for maintaining communications but are highly recommended in the event that you need to be extracted from wherever you end up at the other end of the wormhole. Simply have your communicating companion tug at the other end of the communicators while you hold onto your end until you are pulled to safety.
Dennis: Do you happen to have any of these with you right now, Hank? I think we could use a pair once we return to the story.
Silence
Dennis: (muffled/distant) Aw now my microphone is cut off? Come on!!!
Hank: So once again folks, this is Hank Holbrook of Hank’s Wholesale Holes, saying watch out for wormholes, and visit my site on the worlds-wide web to purchase your very own wormhole can communicators. Be sure to use the coupon code: GreetingsLurflings to get a ten percent discount on your first item or half off of any second item you buy. So long for now, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
end of segment music
Resume Episode 9: Cheese Gone Bad Yuri: Shipward… status report: did we make it through the wormhole intact? And why are we in complete darkness?
Guri: Are we back at the bottom of the well?
Shipward: Our ship is intact but only semi-functional… I’m still trying to get all of our external scanners to work. Shipweena and I aren’t on speaking terms at the moment, which is making it a bit difficult to-
Yuri: Oh for the love of comets, Shipward! When are you going to learn? You know your track record with ship-board appliances!
Shipward: I do, and yet like a moth is to blame…
Yuri: I don’t think that’s the expression- whoa!! What’s that bright light all of the sudden!!
WATER POURING SOUND EFFECT
C.C.: Ohhhh, sweet Vanna White, that is a relief!!!!
Yuri: What? What’s that noise?? Oh no!!
Shipward: Captain, I’ve established that we seem to be floating in giant basin of some sort-
WATER SPLASHING SOUND EFFECT
Yuri: Oh, what’s this?? Are we sinking??
C.C: There hain’t nothin’ like the comforts of one’s home commode!!
Shipward: We are still afloat, Captain, just being hit by waves or some sort of waterfall-
Yuri: Oh my stars, is C.C. emptying his shy bladder on us?? C.C.!!! Can you hear me?? This is Captain Yurishi-
C.C.: Oh, Captain, my Captain!! Just hold on a second here… as I…
WATER FALL STOPPING AND STARTING
Yuri: Stop it!! Please Stop!! Once and for all, just stop!!
C.C.: Oh now there we go!! I can’t tell you how good that felt, Captain. I was on the verge of an internal rupture I believe.
Yuri: You peed all over us, you fool!! Oh, the indignity.
C.C.: What? I didn’t!! I wouldn’t!! Well, whaddya know… I did. Now why in the sam hell would you be hiding in my toilet??
Yuri: We just emerged from the wormhole here… we can’t control these things!
C.C.: Well and there was no controlling what I just did either, so let’s bring a little bit of understanding and forgiveness to this situation, shall we, as my pastor is fond of saying?
Yuri: Oh, you go to church, C.C.?
C.C.: Not usually, no… but that’s what he was fond of saying when I’d catch him with my Shirley after one of my late night romps through the hen house, if you know what I mean.
Yuri: Oh, I see.
C.C.: But all of that’s water under the bridge now, ain’t that right, Shirley??
Shirley (Jeff): Water under the what? Oh, C.C.!! Did you miss the toilet again??
C.C.: No, of course not, Shirley-curls! And say… is it me or is this Winnebago looking a bit bigger and nicer than I remember it?
Shirley: Did you hit your head in there, C.C.? This is the same Winnebago we’ve had for a while now. C.C.: Maybe when we put the two halves back together we managed to expand it a bit? I’m forgetting?
Shirley: I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about, C.C., but you best change and get ready for tonight.
C.C.: Oh, well now… what’s tonight, dear?
Shirley: Have you really gone an’ lost all your marbles all of a sudden?? You know it’s Swinging Thursdays down at the Unitarian Universalist and that we haven’t missed one of those in years. Ooo, I do hope those new young soccer players will be there again.
C.C.: Shirley, how dare you!!
Shirley: Oh, now I didn’t see you complaining last week when you brought back some members of the cheer squad. Remember they all re-enacted their last victory right over there between the bedposts.
C.C.: What? Really?
Shirley: You were the referee and you got so excited you swallowed your whistle. And then you had that cough and you were coughing and whistling all through the sermon on Sunday.
C.C.: Clearing throat Seems to be gone now…
Shirley: Much to the amusement of the congregation...
C.C.: Are you trying to tell me, Shirley, that in this universe we have what I believe is called an open marriage?
Shirley: Why would you need to ask me that question, C.C? Are you feeling okay? And what do you mean “in this universe”?
C.C.: Nothing, I-...
Shirley: Why you’re sweating profusely, C.C.!! I think you’re burning up, all of the sudden!!
C.C.: No, no… I’m okay, I just need some fresh air, that’s all!
Shirley: Well, don’t stay out long. Curfew’s in just a few minutes, and you don’t want to run afoul of our camel overlord again.
C.C.: Our camel… overlord?
Shirley: You must have amnesia or something, C.C.!! I’m going to have to start a petition to allow us to see a doctor! I don’t know how I’ll get any signatures at this hour though… might have to wait until tomorrow...
C.C.: Ok… I’ll be right back.
DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES
C.C.: Great horned cockatoos, Yuri, did you catch all of that?
Yuri: I did. We heard it all loud and clear. Apparently we’ve traveled to a version of Lurf where strange creatures called camels are in charge and where they maintain a tight control over medical care…
C.C.: Yeah, yeah… nevermind that. I have an open marriage here, Yuri!! I am never leaving!!!
Yuri: No, no… we must try to get back to our original version of the universe. The risks of staying in any other version are too great.
C.C.: I’m not sure you heard me there, Captain Underpants. How do you expect me to walk away from an open marriage??
Yuri: Well, you just put one of those long, club-like tentacles of yours in front of the other and you move away from the Winnebago and back here into the wormhole… you must follow us immediately!
C.C.: Let’s see now, who will I be inviting over first? Well, there’s that acting school intern down at the shop who always seems to choose to fake an injury of a saw blade right in the center of her chest, which I always found quite provocative. Drove me a bit crazy, if you must know-
Yuri: Oh, boy, we’re going to need to enlist some help here. Shipward, are any of C.C.’s companions nearby?
Shipward: Hank and Dennis are here at the wormhole entrance, yes.
C.C.: But why limit this to girls I know? I mean I think having an open marriage might put me into a different league altogether here… nobody turns down that sort of invitation, I imagine.
Yuri: Hank, can you hear me? Can you please talk some sense into your friend there and tell him we must leave this universe immediately?
C.C.: So there’s Jennifer Lawrence, Edie Brickell… and the new Bohemians, I guess, I mean the more the merrier… or why not go right to the top and invite Beyonce?? The sky’s the limit!
Hank: Uh, C.C.? Where is he? I still can’t see anything… Dennis, can you go tell C.C. we have to leave?
Dennis: I’m on it, Hank.
C.C.: Now I wouldn’t want to offend or insult Jay-Z though… but I imagine being the gigantic superstars that they are, their marriage must be open to some extent. There’s a decent chance anyways.
Dennis: C.C., can you quit your blabbering and fantasizing and get over here?! It’s time to go back into the wormhole.
C.C.: I’m not fantasizing, Dennis, this is real!!
Dennis: It’s not our home universe, C.C., and the longer we stay here, the bigger the risk that we cause some sort of rupture in the delicate fabric of space time!
C.C.: Oh now you should ask Sheila about how she handles delicate fabric. I believe there’s a knits gentle setting on the washing machine that she uses… maybe that would help with your little space time problem…
Dennis: What if the C.C. in this universe comes home right now?? Can’t you see how dangerous that would be?
C.C.: Well I would don my cap and shake his hand, as he has somehow cracked the code or hit the lottery, whatever the expression may be.
Dennis: Shaking his hand might just end all of the universes as we know them!! We have to get out of here, C.C.-
Zoltan: Ehhh, is this the place, Esa? What do you think?
Dennis: What now? Who are you?
Zoltan: Oh, I see you beat us to it, well… you win this round, Americantsi, but we will see who wins zee longer war…
Dennis: If you’re referring to the Cold War, Russki, well we won that one too.
Esa: Ey, what ees dees mudak saying? Dees eediot?
Zoltan: Calm down, Esa. Eet’s okay. We are all on the same side, no? Or maybe we will be on one side, and they will be on the other, but we will be joined by what’s in the middle, no?
Dennis: What are you talking about? I’m not following-
Zoltan: You are both here for zee event tonight, right?
Esa: Yes, zee Shirley’s Big Bang Gang? Here our tickets… where are yours?
C.C.: What did he say?
Dennis: Let me see those. short pause Oh… C.C., we best be going. Come on.
C.C.: No, let me see those tickets! What do they say??
Esa: Eet is always a good show!
C.C.: Big bang what? Oh, does she host of regular discussion about the start of the universe? Is that what it is?
Dennis: Come on, C.C.-
Esa: I’m just sad we can never convince our seester, Rakiya, to join. She is how do you say… a prune?
Zoltan: Eet’s a prude, you eediot!! Not a prune!! Maybe when she grow older, she become a prune. But right now, she a prude. And wait a minute, did you say she’s our seester??
Esa: I didn’t tell you that? Our long lost seester, given away at birth to a band of traveling gypsies.
WHACK
Esa: Aiiieeeeee!!!!
Zoltan: How could you not have told me thees?? I try every day, once in morning, once at night, to make zee love to zee Rakiya, and each time she heet me with frying pan and say, “No!! Never!!” I theenk she playing hard to get, like zee leetle mynx dat she is!!
Esa: Eet’s because she’s your seester.
WHACK
Esa: Aiiiee-yaa yaaowww!
Zoltan: I see that now, you fool!! Why deedn’t you tell me sooner???
Esa: Eet very amusing to watch you get heet with the frying pan!! But don’t heet me any more, brother!! We go see Sheila instead… she make everything alright!!
C.C.: Like hell you will!!
Much shouting
Dennis: Help me drag him over here, boys!! We’ll be out of your hair in just a minute if we can get him into this hole in the ground here!!
C.C.: I’ll never let them do what they want to do to my Sheila!! Never!!
Dennis: This is what an open marriage means, you nitwit!! If you were to stay here-
C.C.: It is???
Dennis: Of course, now let’s get out of here! Stop resisting!!
C.C.: I guess I wasn’t seeing past what an open marriage meant for me… I-... well, now I’m embarrassed.
Dennis: Yeah, yeah, just come along now. Hank, tell Yuri and Guri we’re entering the wormhole.
Narrator (Jeff): And with that, our merry crew was off on another journey through space and time, wherever the wormhole shall take them, we’ll have to wait to find out on the next episode of-
Yuri: Now, hold on!! Not the narrator again!! I thought I blasted his frontal lobes for good one or two episodes ago!!
Narrator: You did, Yuri. You did. You got me good. But luckily the effects wore off after a week or so. I came to my senses in a pool of my own filth. Various earthbound creatures had come to try to feast on my excrement and I think on my flesh as well… I saw some bite and peck marks on my arm…
Yuri: Oh, I’m sorry-...
Narrator: No, it’s okay, you know, it’s like they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Yuri: No, I’m sorry the blaster effect wore off. It means I’ll have to try it again!
Narrator: No, please, not again-
ZZAAPPPP
Narrator: Auuuggggnnnhhhh!!
silence
end of segment music
Guri: That’s awfully cruel of you, Captain. He was just trying to do his job.
Yuri: Would you like to be next?
Guri: Such aggression, Captain!! Honestly… I’m not sure I can even do our last segment with you behaving like this.
Yuri: Oh really? What was our last segment going to be?
Guri: Well, it says here: Tea Time with Yuri and Guri. A narrated journey through all of the universe’s greatest teas. But you don’t seem to be in the right mood for that…
Yuri: Probably not…
Shipward: Well, I guess you’ve teased the segment for next time anyway.
Guri: Aha!! I see what you did there. We teased it. It’s a tea segment. Shipward’s pretty funny, Captain.
Yuri: He can’t be funny, he’s a computer. Maybe his programmers were funny…
Guri: He’s not a computer, Captain. We’ve been over this.
Shipward: I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I could sub in for the Captain on the segment. I am a tea lover.
Guri: Oh really? Hit me with your number one brew.
AD LIB TEA TALK
Orange pekoe, green tea, black tea, Darjeeling (tea of crazy people), oolong tea, chamomile, hibiscus, earl gray… who was Earl Gray?
AD LIB TALK WITH MARKETING CONSULTANT FOR PODCAST, Jeff is fly-by-night marketing consultant with some ideas to boost the podcast’s market share
- Why do we need? Thought our numbers were good. No, they’re not. Only your tree mothers are listening. Oh, all 42 of them? No, only three of your tree mothers.
Publicity Stunt Ideas
- Publicity stunt (airplane with signs trailing behind them… or space ships with messages trailing behind them… who will read those?)
- One of podcast hosts could fake his own death
- They could push a small child into a well (that’s already been done on this podcast… minor ratings bump)
--later THEEND jumps in with his favorite teas