2nd draft by William Kates with Rev. Ivan Stang
apologies to Janor Hypercleats
(Fade in. Bed-time intro music.)
Ren and Stimpy are in bed. Stimpy opens storybook. TITLE is in lettering that looks like green-stained tissue-paper.
Stimpy (reading):
Once upon a time? There was a sweet little old... tissue maker! He and his faithful assistant spent all day working very very hard, making quality facial quality tissue using only the very finest... uh?... tissue hens!
In tissue-maker's uniforms (?), Ren and Stimpy feverishly operate clunky contraptions for plucking the tissue, flattening it, folding it, stacking it, making boxes, filling the boxes, stacking the boxes, stamping prices...(Tissue Hens look like Dodos, but with wadded tissue paper for feathers.)
Stimpy: It was grueling, painstaking work which filled their days with endless toil.
Grunting and straining. Nuts and bolts. Sweat pouring off them... practically jetting from them. Close-up of ARMPIT SWEAT, squirting from dozens of tiny pore `teats' in Stimpy's armpit.
Ren and Stimpy collapse exhausted onto bed at night, in rickety shack bedroom that suggests extreme poverty.
Ren:
We should be thankful that the villagers are healthy, Stimpy. If ever there were an epidemic or plague of sinus infections, I don't know how we could possibly keep up with the demand for facial quality tissue!
Ren and Stimpy roll over to sleep. Unbeknownst to them, three ominous shadowy figures are lurking at the window, swathed in black and fairly vibrating with evil. ("Danger" music.) They slink away quickly, and a flying saucer is revealed silhouetted against the full moon. A nozzle emerges from the saucer and starts spraying something as we fade out.
Stimpy:
The next morning, for some mysterious reason, all the good people of the village caught terrible colds.
Street of cartoon-medieval village. Hideous coughing and GROSS SNEEZING sound effects, sprays emiting from windows. Man standing in green puddle removing and using his last Kleenex, shaking empty box. A brown SPLASH hits the street as if poured from chamberpot overhead. OPTIONAL: rivers of sinus effluvia flowing from noses hanging out village windows. Splashes of snot.... puddles... vivid sniffing, snuffling, sneezing sound effects.
Sneezing and snuffling sound effects continue throughout entire cartoon -- usually as distant background.
Stimpy:
They were demanding far more boxes of tissue than the poor tissue makers could hope to produce.
There is a clamoring crowd outside the shop... blowing noses... tissues dripping, spraying green fluid. A babble of demanding voices and snortings and wet snifflings.
Gruff working man(the Fire Chief of earlier episode): What am I pay taxes for?
Shrill obese housewife (also of Firedogs episode): My baby MUST have quality facial quality tissue!
Ren:
Woe! Oh, WOE!! Look at these orders! Surely we will arouse the ire of those diseased townspeople when they discover there is but ONE MEASLY BOX OF TISSUES for their UNTOLD THOUSANDS of UNCONTROLLABLY RUNNING NOSES?? STIMPY -- QUICK!! LIE TO THEM!!
Stimpy:
Oh good townspeople, please come back tomorrow, and we shall surely supply all your facial tissue needs!"
Stimpy slams the big shop door (which cuts off spray of mucus that's been pelting him) and helps sobbing, quivering, haggard Ren to bed.
Stimpy:
Fear not, o good tissue maker! Perhaps, as we sleep, a miracle (twinkle sound fx and beatific grin) can yet occur!
Ren looks sickened for an instant, rolling his eyes, then has a change of heart and looks at Stimpy fondly, touched.
Ren:
Oh, you poor, naive assistant. Perhaps, in your faithful, child-like way, you are helping me to cope with the harsh, cruel sham that our pitiful lives have become.
Slightly prolonged shot of Stimpy just standing there, completely uncomprehending, a totally stupid, blank look on his face.
Ren waits a beat for any reaction, then shrugs with exhaustion.
Ren:
Anyway, at least, if we are well rested we will be better prepared to face the angry hordes of desperate townsfolk that will be after our hides tomorrow. Goodnight, my faithful assistant.
Stimpy:
Duh, goodnight!
They hunker down.
Too-cutesy female narrator:
But, as our tired friends slumbered, a miracle was indeed about to take place!
Chanting Elf Voices coming from bedroom doorway:
STIMPY!... STIMPY!.... COME WITH US!... STIMPY!... STIMPY!...
Stimpy:
Huh? Whuzzat? Hizawummamoonah?
Stimpy sits up, his hair ruffled from sleep in some unearthly way, gross bags under his eyes. He follows the voices, half-sleepwalking.
Dynamic male narrator (like radio adventure announcer):
And as our hero stumbled into the workshop, an incredible sight met his incredulous gaze!
"Industrious" music. Elves are swarming all over the workshop, plucking tissue hens and operating all the machinery, plus some new, exotic-looking elf devices. Elves are SUPER CUTE -- look very much like cherubic little KIDS. Sickeningly cute, cuter than Cabbage Patch dolls. But they do creepy `yodel' noises and depraved evil laughs.
Elves: LA LA LA LA LA LA LA? LA LA LA LA LA LA...
Lead Elf: Stimpy! Our secret friend!
Stimpy: Huh?
Lead Elf: Only YOU can see us secretly at work!
Elf 2: For it was YOU who summoned us!
Stimpy (slackjawed, finger pulling on lip): I... did?
Lead Elf: Surely! We are here to show you ...THE NEW WAY.
"WEIRD" music sting. Quick close-up of the elf insignia design which is on their clothes and tools: two lightning bolts crossed to form an upside-down `V', with a flying saucer spanning the top center. (Kind of an eye-in-a pyramid design like on dollar bills.) Stimpy looks freaked out but stupidly fascinated.
Lead Elf:
And for this, we must cel-e-brate!! (Elves all hoot and yodel and cackle and blow party favors and let fly balloons.) I know! Let's start by inserting this probe into your body!
A "mad doctor" elf approaches with weird barbed-needle-like device. Stimpy grimaces in dismay. Close up of Stimpy's heart convulsively constricting in fear. He `clenches' his butt in anxiety. Lead Elf looks crestfallen.
Lead Elf:
Oh, Stimpy, our dearest friend, who can you trust if not us? It won't hurt a bit! In fact... you'll THANK us for it!
Stimpy seems reassured now and stupidly eager. They whip him into a tilting dentist's chair sort of thing. The "doctor" unties his belly-button, stretches it out like the end of a balloon, and shoves the spinning probe down it. This seems to tickle Stimpy the way chewing tinfoil would, but they punch something that looks like a power cord into his nose and he shuts up, wide-eyed.
Stimpy's brain puffs and blisters, then sags, like a marshmallow too close to the campfire. His face indicates DROOLING, GIBBERING, MINDLESS PLEASURE.
The elves pull him by the arms and gaily lead him skipping and dancing bizarrely around the shop as the tissue-making work continues.
Yet a Different Male Narrator:
And so? The simple tissue maker's assistant reveled deep into the night with the strange and mysterious elves, as they churned out box after box of superior quality facial quality tissue. Suddenly -- !
Lead Elf:
Gadzooks! Dawn approaches! Fair Stimpy, alas, you must drink from this Bottle of Forgetfulness and erase all memory of us from your brain... save only for the knowledge of our existence, and that but you alone can see and hear us!
Stimpy: B-But --
Lead Elf: SILENCE!!
The elves force a bottle of glurpy looking ORANGE STUFF down Stimpy's throat. He gags extravagantly, finally swallows, his eyes turn into orange spirals and he passes out. Giggling insanely, the elves sweep the place clean of all traces of their revelry and exit out the window. (Dawn light coming in.) A close-up of the snoring Stimpy pulls back to reveal the shop crammed full and piled high to the ceiling with every conceivable shape, color and size of tissue boxes.
Ren shuffles into the room in nightgown, rubbing his baggy eyes and yawning. A-OOGAH double-take.
Ren:
WHA...? Stimpy! My God! I cannot... believe it! You must have stayed up all --
He is interrupted by a sudden avalanche of yowling, sneezing, snotting villagers waving money, generating smoke and divits, ((Note: Bill -- WHAT ARE "DIVITS"???), who enter, sweep the shelves clean almost instantaneously, and exit, leaving greenbacks and coins piled up and stuffed into every possible crevice, including those of Ren and Stimpy's bodies.
Ren:
WOW! STIMPY! WE ARE RICH! RICH BEYOND OUR WILDEST DREAMS!! (Ridiculously exaggerated squeal of delight, like a 1950s teenage girl swooning at `Frankie'.) Oh, you faithful, hardworking assistant! What is the secret of your productivity?
Stimpy (confused):
Uh, actually, I think it had something to do with... ELVES?!?!?!?
Ren:
Ho ho ho! Your humor, it truly astounds me! Well, whatever your secret is, it has made me happy! Truly, happy, happy, happy.... for the first time in... in YEARS!!
He embraces Stimpy, tears gushing from his eyes.
Stimpy (tearfully, deeply touched):
Well, if you are happy, my friend, then truly, I could ask for no (sob) greater gift!
COLLAGE of: elves working, tissues, money, cash registers, GLURPY ORANGE STUFF, money, Ren cackling with unrepressed greed, Stimpy helpless and confused. Stimpy's eyes look weird all the time. Orange-ish.
1950's sci-fi-ish Narrator:
And so, our hero was plunged into a wonderful, yet strangely disturbing cycle... a cycle... over which he had increasingly little control!
Stimpy:
Dyuh, now hold it a minute! Whatta ya mean by "increasingly little control"?
Narrator:
Just what I said! The more the elves kept Stimpy up each night frolicking in a hypnotic stupor, the more they controlled his thoughts and deeds!
Stimpy (confused):
Oh! (Looks at audience, plaintively, pitifully) My mind is no longer my friend!
Narrator:
Until soon, the elves had Stimpy performing strange and mysterious tasks for them during his waking hours!
Stimpy is crawling backwards around the kitchen on his butt... using his butt-muscles like a snail's psuedopod, dragging himself butt-first.
Ren:
Stimpy! What are you doing, man?
Stimpy:
Must... find... the Magenta... Adaptions! Must... find... the Magenta... Adaptions!
Ren:
HUH?
Stimpy exits backwards, his face totally zombie-like. Ren scratches his head in wonderment as he walks towards the door -- Stimpy knocks him over as he suddenly reenters, a fanatical gleam in his eyes, carrying a box filled with weird red lenses like the Martian's eyes in War of the Worlds.
Stimpy:
Magenta... Adaptions... located! Magenta... Adaptions... located!
Ren (to himself and audience):
Something mysterious and unexplained is definitely going on in this man's life, and I, his loyal friend, must find out what it is!
Narrator:
And so, that night:
Ren emerges from bed in nightgown, holding a lamp, skulking furtively.
Ren (whispering, shushing audience):
I have secretly stayed awake tonight to unravel both the mystery of our strangely good fortune, and my sidekick's erratic behavior! Shh!
He hears ELF REVELRY from the shop, and sees bizarre cavorting shadows on the hallway walls, as he stealthily creeps towards the brightly lit shop doorway.
He flings open the door and does a massive A-OOGAH double-take of knuckle-gnawing, tire-chewing horror as he takes in the monstrous spectacle before his eyes.
He has caught Stimpy and the elves mid-fever pitch in revelry. Stimpy is dressed in a tou-tou and an elf on a ladder is applying lipstick to his lips. Half-finished Martian machinery is scattered about amidst the tissues as they spew forth, fluttering, from a conveyor belt. Human noses are bubbling up out of green fluid. percolating at the apex of a surreal Rube Goldberg-like contraption. Fanatical elves, grinning like out-of-control speedfreaks, are viciously using their own teeth and heads as scissors and hammers.
Also, the shop now has the look of a Martian/Nazi beer hall, festooned with hieroglyphic slogans on banners, and recurring ultra-heroic posters of an elf "fuehrer". (George Licker, looking like a cross between Santa Claus and Saddam Hussein or Hitler, grinning and clenching a fatherly-type pipe in his teeth.) A banner across the whole room reads, "TOIL IS ALL."
Elf `Plant Supervisor':
MORE FACIAL TISSUE! MORE! HERD IN THE NEW KASSNER HEADS FOR FACE HARVESTING! And they'd better be TISSUE QUALITY faces!
Hundreds of beings thunder through the room -- a stampede of KASSNER HEADS. These creatures are nothing but heads with two tiny legs at the bottom, which scurry nervously about, chanting continuously in sing-song:
"Kassner head, a Kassner head, Kassner Head, a Kassner head., Kassner Head, a Kassner head..."
Elf Supervisor:
Now PEEL that facial tissue, boys! (to one of the workers) Hey, grandma faces go to Bin Fourteen!
Elves are hog-tying the happily chanting Kassner Heads and peeling the skin off their faces, after which they continue to scurry around singing...
Ren, incredulously, to himself:
These... these grotesque cavorting creatures! They're... NOT OF THIS EARTH! (Screaming at the top of his lungs) STOP!
Activity slams to a halt. All stare at Ren a trifle sheepishly.
Ren:
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!!! ARE YOU ALL CRAZY?!?
(pause)
Ren rushes to Stimpy, slapping him with extreme violence across the face, trying to knock sense back into his obviously brainwashed head.
Ren:
Stimpy! Stimpy! Snap out of it, man!
Stimpy (blubbering):
I CAN'T HELP IT, REN!
(Lugging the sagging, blissed-out Stimpy by the collar, he turns furiously to the elves.)
Ren:
What have you done to my friend's BRAIN?? Why, you cloyingly sweet little prancing monsters!
Ren swells up his chest with fury, defying them like an exorcist or something.
Ren (bellowing with righteousness):
BEGONE YOU DEMONS OF HORROR!! I cast out your evil presence from my tissue facility!
Priestly Elf (with maddening gentleness):
Why do you fear We Who Are Not As Others? Simply because we are different? We wish only to share our advanced knowledge.
Smartass Elf:
Yeah -- whattsa matter, Röenhoek? We thought you wanted profits... (The elves titter.)
Ren:
Profits? Yes! But THIS... THIS is MADNESS!
"Good Cop" Elf:
Röenhoek, my friend, this "madness", as you call it, is responsible for all the good that has happened for you! Besides... (very gently, understandingly) you know too much now.
The elves suddenly grab Ren and hold his mouth open, ready to pour in the GLURPY ORANGE STUFF. Stimpy gazes adoringly upon the glop with mindless, ecstatic reverence.
Stimpy:
You'll see, Ren. It's better this way.
They pour it down him. He struggles, gags, urps up a fountain which falls straight back in, swallows, tenses up, sags, melts, fizzles, and then leaps to his feet, trembling with joy.
Ren:
Now I understand EVERYTHING! It's all so BLINDINGLY CLEAR! We... we MUST show... THE OTHERS!!
Laughs maniacally as if with DIVINELY REVEALED UNDERSTANDING.
Ren:
Why did I not know of this till now?
Elves (trading sly glances conspiratorially.):
Uh... we... we wanted it to be a SURPRISE!
Other Elves:
Yeah! That's it! A surprise!
Ren:
Oh!... Ha ha!... Of course! (Ironically) And to think that I once doubted you!
All holler and yodel with delight, and the `party' starts up again, with Ren participating eagerly.
Narrator (with momentous sternness):
And so, in its own strange way, an alliance was formed between the Elf Reality Plane and our own!
(Triumph music. Fade out.)
Fade in on Ren and Stimpy in front of stage curtain for End Speech.
Both Ren's and Stimpy's eyes now look weird.
Ren:
So remember, kids, those little voices in your head that tell you what to do, COULD be your BEST FRIENDS!
Stimpy:
Listen to them early and often!
Booth Announcer:
And say, kids, want to be like your best friends, Ren and Stimpy? It's easy! (Shiny pitcher full of GLORPY ORANGE STUFF bursts out from behind curtain, sitting on table with inviting-looking, sparkling glasses.) Try REN AND STIMPY'S ORANGE-ELF SUPER-DELIGHT, made with the finest of grandma faces!
Stimpy:
You'll like it SO much... you'll forget why you're drinking it!"
Ren:
Better than candy! And it comes with a free secret SILENT RADIO decoder chip that fits right up your nose!
They hold up a huge portrait of the Elf "fuehrer".
Stimpy:
And remember, kids -- always do what our leader tells you!
Ren (aside to viewer, super-fast):
Subliminal memory bar code 76524! (very swift computer-code beeping noises)
Stimpy:
Meanwhile, here's what to tell your parents!
Happy all-American KIDS suddenly appear:
"It's okay, Mom --
(singing:) It's just a club for kids...
who like to pretend,
they're alien men,
pretending to be your kids!"
Stimpy:
So when the elves talk to YOU, just remember: there's nothing to worry about -- they're only in your imagination.
Ren:
Of course! Ha ha! But until then...
Both(fondly waving and smiling, with zombie eyes):
SO LONG!!
(End music, fade to black/credits)