Disclaimer: I don't own anything, Mondo Media does.
Band Over Fist
Starring: Lumpy and The Cat
Featuring: Cuddles, Giggles, Toothy, Petunia, The Mole, Sniffles, Nutty, Mime, and Splendid
Numerous Generic Tree Friends gathered in a large outdoor amphitheatre and awaited the performance of Maestro Lumpy and his famed Happy Tree Orchestra. On stage, various members of the band were warming up their instruments as sounds blared all across the stage. Suddenly, those on stage ceased warming up, and a hush fell over the crowd as Maestro Lumpy approached the stage to thunderous applause.
Very professionally, Lumpy bowed to his audience and held up his hand to silence them. However, at that moment, a car alarm went off in the parking lot. Lumpy grumbled at the loud noise and waited for it to silence.
Outside, The Cat ran for his life from his demolished vehicle and the dead bodies of his comrades: Lifty & Shifty. Zooming above chasing The Cat while shooting his eye laser was Splendid. Beforehand, Lifty, Shifty, and The Cat had robbed a bank but soon found Splendid on their tail. So, they diverged into the amphitheatre parking lot but crashed, killing Lifty and Shifty on impact. Thinking a same fate would befall him, The Cat ran from the vehicle.
As he ran, he passed by Russell who gave a confused "Yar?". He simply shrugged, took out his keys, and silenced his car alarm that was going haywire. Unfortunately, Splendid's eye laser zoomed by Russell, slicing him in half. The Cat panted as he ran faster towards the amphitheatre to escape from Splendid.
Back inside, hearing the car alarm go off, Maestro Lumpy smiled and faced his band. He cleared his throat and tapped his conducting baton on his stand. Instantly, the orchestra raised their instruments to begin playing. Suddenly, a fly buzzed in front of Lumpy's face. He began to swipe frantically with both hands trying to get rid of the fly. The band misread the signal and began to play as sporadically as Lumpy was swiping. Finally, Lumpy managed to smack the fly away with his conductor's baton, sending it speeding away.
"Mmm-hmm!" Lumpy yelled at sending his flying fiend packing. Again, he cleared his throat, tapped on his stand, and the rest of the band grew quiet. He raised his hands and began to conduct as the rest of the band began to play the full "William Tell Overture" by Giachino Rossini.
Some of the prominent members of the band included Cuddles on trumpet, Giggles on flute, Petunia on clarinet, Sniffles on English horn, Nutty on piccolo, Toothy on trombone, Mime on his "imaginary" cello, and The Mole on percussion. Various other Generic Tree Friends filled in the remaining sections of the orchestra.
The strings and lower pitched instruments began the slow Prelude section of the piece as The Cat came running into the amphitheatre with Splendid in full pursuit flying above him. To avoid his pursuer, The Cat quickly rushed onstage and tried to integrate in with the orchestra. Lumpy was too fixated on conducting to notice that Splendid was now flying above searching through the various members of the orchestra to locate The Cat.
The whole rest of the band took notice as The Cat darted and weaved in between them, finally taking refuge behind Mime. Mime was shocked and confused, but kept playing his "cello". Soon enough, Splendid flew over and landed next to Mime.
"Hmm" he questioned while looking at Mime. Something about him didn't look right to Splendid (since The Cat was hiding right behind Mime, The Cat's tail was sticking out, making it seem like Mime had a cat-like tail). The Cat began to sweat profusely and decided to leap out of his hiding place. Right as he leapt, Splendid fired his eye lasers, slicing Mime's head off in the process. As Mime's headless body fell to the ground, Splendid saw that The Cat was nowhere to be found. Shrugging, Splendid assumed that his foe had gotten away. He happily saluted the body of Mime, not realizing he accidentally killed another innocent person, floated upwards, and flew away to fight more crime.
The Cat wiped his brow clean of sweat and then smiled at having successfully avoided the law. Then, The Cat thought that he should stay at the concert since pandemonium and mayhem were his specialty. The Cat was going to make sure this would be a concert to remember.
As The Cat slinked away into the darkness, the Prelude section of the song went directly into the dynamic Storm section. Nutty and Giggles played dramatic parts as the rest of the band followed. The Mole picked up cymbals to crash together at the peak moments.
As the tempo began to pick up, The Cat poked his head out from offstage and smiled vilely. Unseen, The Cat had tied a string to Toothy's chair. At the right time, The Cat pulled on the string, pulling Toothy back into the cymbals of The Mole where his head was crushed.
Nutty and Giggles still played dramatic runs while the climax of the Storm continued. However, The Cat quickly threw a peppermint on stage. Almost instantly, Nutty started to cackle, dropped his instrument, and dived at the peppermint. Lumpy, upset at the interruption, set his conducting baton down, and yelled at Nutty. While he was doing this, The Cat went up to the podium and covered Lumpy's baton in dish soap, making it slippery.
As a saddened Nutty sat back down, Lumpy picked up his baton, tapped on his music stand, raised his hands and began conducting again. He conducted so fast; however, that the baton literally flew out of his hands, and zoomed into Petunia's chest. She screamed in pain as Lumpy stopped the music again. He angrily walked up to her, and proceeded to yank the baton out of her chest with her heart still attached to it. She gasped and tried to get Lumpy's attention as her blood started to flow out of the wound. Lumpy paid no heed to her as she fainted out of her chair and died.
Lumpy cleared his throat, and continued from where they left off (with Petunia's heart flying off the baton in the process). The woodwinds slowed the rest of the band down as they began the Morning section of the Overture. As Sniffles began his English Horn solo, The Cat evilly prepared another dirty trick for the Happy Tree Orchestra. Tying a piece of candy to a fishing line, The Cat dangled the line in front of Nutty. Nutty, still hungry, giggled and reached out to take the sweet treat. With his prey caught, The Cat brought the line in front of Sniffles. Nutty, anxious to get his candy, ran straight at Sniffles and jumped to get the delectable treat. Just in time, The Cat pulled up on the line and got the candy out of the way, leading to Nutty plowing into Sniffles' music stand and Sniffles himself. The music stand flew upwards into the air as Sniffles angrily looked at Nutty, who was still giggling to his hearts content. Before Sniffles could yell at Nutty, the music stand came back down, vertically slicing Sniffles in two. The two halves of Sniffles then fell to the ground, one going one way, the other going the opposite.
Still unsatisfied, The Cat cut the fishing line with one of his claws, allowing the piece of candy to drop in front of Nutty.
"MMMM!" yelled Nutty as he placed the candy in his mouth. He smacked his lips at the taste, but then his eyes tilted into the back of his head and he fell over on the ground, foam rising out of his mouth.
Offstage, The Cat chuckled evilly as he glanced back at the bottle of cyanide he had used to poison the piece of candy.
Not hearing the English Horn any longer, Lumpy looked up and finally saw that Nutty, Petunia, Sniffles, Toothy, and Mime were dead. Lumpy then gasped in horror, but spied a figure dart away just offstage. Angry, Lumpy signaled to his band to keep performing, while he went to deal with their mysterious intruder.
Offstage, The Cat had finished wiring up the amphitheatre with plastic explosives, timed to go off exactly when the last note was hit. The Cat smiled his evil smile and turned to leave, but only found himself face to face with Lumpy who was angrily staring at him. The Cat gasped and ran as an angry Lumpy began to chase him.
As Lumpy chased The Cat onstage, the band began the Finale (Lone Ranger Theme) of the piece. Retreating a safe distance, The Cat withdrew his claws and swiped to keep Lumpy at bay. Lumpy kept well back due to only having his baton as a weapon.
"Aha!" cried Lumpy when he spied Toothy's forgotten trombone. He picked up the brass instrument and charged his foe with a yell. The Cat quickly dodged Lumpy's charge. Lumpy came crashing in between the timpani and accidentally knocked The Mole (who was playing it) backwards into the gong. Lumpy then chased The Cat back around the percussion section. Thinking he would lose Lumpy, The Cat quickly pulled down the chimes and made some distance between himself and Lumpy as he ran up to the trumpet section. Lumpy was not fooled and quickly followed suit.
While this went on, The Mole easily stood up and rubbed his forehead. But then, The Mole noticed something else; that he could see. Elated, The Mole wanted to run over to his next instrument and finish the song strongly. However, he did not notice the knocked over chimes, and tripped on one of them. This sent The Mole tumbling down onto several drum sticks he had laid straight up so they would be easier to grab. He was stabbed in both eyes, the chest and the left hand successfully reblinding him and killing him.
Over by the trumpet section, The Cat tried slicing Lumpy to pieces with his claws, but was blocked by the trombone Lumpy was using. Lumpy then went on the offensive and tried to smack The Cat with the trombone's slide. The Cat dodged this and the slide hit Cuddles in the back of the head, pushing him forward into his trumpet mouthpiece. He screamed at the top of his lungs at the pain bursting the ear drums of Giggles who was sitting in front of him. Giggles now screamed at her pain and got up from her chair. Just as she did so; however, The Cat unknowingly swiped his claws at her face, aiming for Lumpy instead. Giggles' face fell off in pieces and her body fell to the ground with the others.
Approaching the front of the stage, The Cat and Lumpy continued to fight while the Overture continued on, approaching its ending. The Cat now grabbed the trombone out of Lumpy's hands and threw it away, leaving Lumpy with only his conducting baton.
The trombone flew back into the trumpet section, and smacked Cuddles' trumpet further into his mouth, blocking off the passage of air. Cuddles began to choke and tried to take the instrument out to no avail. His face turned blue and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he died.
The Cat smiled evilly and prepared to do away with Lumpy. Lumpy started to breathe heavily and held his baton, his only weapon, up to meet him. As The Cat tried to swipe, Lumpy's baton somehow met ever blow protecting him from damage. As the rest of the orchestra and audience looked on with awe. The orchestra started the finale line of the piece as Lumpy and The Cat continued to duel, Lumpy ending up on the left side of the stage and The Cat on the right. As the last runs were played, The Cat looked up in horror as he finally remembered the explosives planted around the stage. Lumpy and The Cat quickly covered their faces to protect themselves. The orchestra played the finale notes and the whole amphitheater came crashing down onto the stage, crushing the rest of the orchestra.
Lumpy and The Cat opened their eyes to see that they had not even been scratched by the falling debris. Lumpy sighed heavily as the audience gave him a standing ovation. They thought the whole fight and destruction of the amphitheatre was part of the act. As The Cat sighed and rolled his eyes, Lumpy took a dynamic bow throwing his arms out to his sides. However, his baton was still slippery with dish soap, and it flung out of his hand across the stage. The Cat gasped as the baton implanted right between his eyes. He fell back to the floor dead as Maestro Lumpy only shrugged and continued to accept the thunderous applause.
Out in the audience, none other than Splendid was clapping along with the audience. He had stayed for the entire concert. He gave a wink to signify he had known these events would happen, followed by an iris out.
Moral: Two wrongs don't make a right!