Animaniacs (in conjunction with The Illustrious Crackpot) present

A Series of Fairly Zany Tales

CinderWarner

"Once upon a time in the fictional land of California, in an imaginary town called Hollywood," read an overpaid narrator, "were three little children."

Three young animalistic characters appeared, all in descending height. All of them had sleek black fur, white gloves, white patches of fur around their faces and feet, and little red noses. There were two boys, the taller of whom wore only light brown pants held up by a belt and the shorter of whom wore a light blue turtleneck and a red baseball cap. The smallest of the three, the girl, had on a pink skirt and a flower-shaped scrunchie around her stubby ears.

"I'm Yakko!" announced the taller boy, bounding forward.

"I'm Wakko!" the shorter boy proclaimed, his tongue hanging out as he jumped after his brother. The girl was last, widening her eyes sweetly.

"And I'm CUTE!" she gushed. The disembodied narrator glared at her.

"The three children, Yakko, Wakko and Dot," the narrator emphasized as the girl feigned innocence, "were very poor indeed. So poor, in fact, that they had to live in a watertower."

The scene changed to show a tall, yellow-and-red watertower standing on stilts over a small, bustling town known by the false handle of Burbank. Yakko, Wakko and Dot were sitting on top of the massive conical cap of the building with fishing poles whose lines dangled into the town. They were humming their theme song, looking for all the world like simple fisherme—er, fisherkids, until Wakko's line gave a tug and he excitedly reeled it in. On the other end of his line was a man with a business suit and a briefcase, who was grasping frantically at a piece of paper on the end of Wakko's hook. Yakko gave a big grin.

"Fishing for lawyers with TV deals," he explained impishly.

Wakko took one hand off the pole and reached behind him. Pulling out a pair of scissors, he cut the line smartly in half. "We always let them go," he said in a congested British accent over the screams of the lawyer dropping back into the town. He leaned over the side of the watertower and waved at him. "Bye-bye!" he called.

"Be free, little one!" Yakko added. He smirked at the reader. "We love doing that."

Dot yawned and preened herself. "Oh, how I wish we could meet movie stars!" she read disinterestedly off a cue card. "But we are so poor we must live in a watertower, so we shall never find one."

"What the children didn't know, however," the narrator continued, "was that the wealthy leader of the movie company, Mr. Plotz, was in despair."

The scene changed to show the head offices on the Warner Lot, where a small, stocky, white-haired man in a blue business suit was pacing restlessly up and down a long table. "This is a catastrophe!" he cried, rubbing his skull. "The latest movie is overbudget and we haven't gotten a leading lady for the picture! Oh, this is awful!" He stared up at a portrait of a square-faced, brown-bearded man with glasses. "Oh great Steven, what shall I do?" he wailed.

"Soon enough," went on the disembodied narrator, "he had an answer."

A huge white light suddenly shone in the middle of the room, and Mr. Plotz looked up in shock. While a chorus of invisible dolphins chittered "Hallelujah", a white cloudbank had appeared in midair below the ceiling of the immense room. While the CEO stared at them in disbelief, the clouds parted to show the face of the man in the portrait.

"What do you want?" he demanded. "I have to get back to counting my royalties, so make it snappy."

Mr. Plotz immediately fell to his knees and stared into the face of the astral man. "Oh...oh, great Steven, what shall I do?" he cried. "I have no leading lady for our next picture and we can't afford to hire a star!"

Steven sighed irritably. "Isn't it obvious?" he admonished the CEO. "What you have to do is throw a massive ball in honor of the picture and let everyone in the city attend, movie stars or not."

Mr. Plotz was confused. "Why would I do that?" he asked.

Steven pointed at the title of the story. "This thing is called 'CinderWarner', you dope!" he cried. "There's OBVIOUSLY got to be a ball involved! And you can have your pick of actresses at the ball, too!"

As the dolphins chittered "Hallelujah" again, the clouds began to fade and Steven disappeared, grumbling over the stupidity of his marketing executives. Mr. Plotz still didn't appear to understand his instruction, and simply stood in the middle of the room thinking it over.

"With this great advice," the narrator narrated, "the CEO quickly jumped to his phone to organize the ball!"

"Wait a minute!" Mr. Plotz cried at the narrator, waving his hands frantically. "I'm still thinking it over! I'm not going to jump to my phone to organize the ball!"

The narrator's voice took on a steely edge. "I'm the narrator, bub," the narrator reminded him, and Mr. Plotz seemed to shrink as the voice continued. "THE CEO QUICKLY JUMPED TO HIS PHONE TO ORGANIZE THE BALL."

Trembling, Mr. Plotz ran to the phone and picked it up. "Hello?" he said into it, glancing warily around. "Organize a ball for everyone in town to come to." And then, in a whisper, he added, "And find a better source for hiring narrators!"

The disembodied narrator cleared its throat and continued as though nothing was wrong. "The news spread all across the land of Mr. Plotz's generosity in holding a ball for all to attend. Even the Warner children, during their weekly visit to the psychiatrist Dr. Scratchansniff, heard of it."

The scene switched to a small office with a long couch and a large desk, where Yakko, Wakko and Dot were jumping for joy in front of the psychiatrist. Dr. Scratchansniff was a tall, stooped, bald man with a white coat and glasses so thick you couldn't see his eyes through them, and he obviously felt uncomfortable having the three jumping for joy in front of him.

"YAAAAAAY!" the Warners cried in chorus, bouncing up and down. "We're goin' to a parrrrrr-ty! WE'RE goin' to a PARRRRRR-TY!"

"Shtop, shtop, shtop!" Dr. Scratchansniff cried piteously in a vaguely German accent. He would've torn out his hair if he'd had any. "Please, kinders, zhere eez zomezhing I haff to tell you!"

As dictated by the psychiatrist, the Warners shtopped jumping. Instead, they leapt onto the older man's shoulders and latched on firmly. "Are you telling me that I have an inferiority complex, Doc?" Yakko asked in a childish voice. "I always thought there was a reason I liked telling jokes!"

"Did you find out about my eating disorder?" Wakko added on, stuffing a massive cheeseburger into his mouth and dropping the crumbs into the creases of the doctor's skull. "I've been trying to hide it!"

Dot wrapped her arms around Dr. Scratchansniff's neck, cuddling up against his collarbone. "Did you realize just how cute I am?" she purred, batting her eyelashes.

Dr. Scratchansniff, using a massive reserve of strength, pried the three off of him. "No, no no!" he exclaimed exasperatedly as the Warners tumbled to the floor and sat up in rapt attention. "It'sz about zhe pahrty!"

Wakko jumped up and wagged his long, catlike tail. "Is Don Knotts gonna be there?" he gushed dreamily. "I always wanted to meet Don Knotts!"

The doctor's shoulders slumped over even more. "I'm shorry, Vakko," he sighed, "but zhat's imposszible now."

There was a short and uncharacteristic moment of silence as Wakko removed his cap and all four of them placed a hand over their hearts. Then Wakko put his hat back on. "Well, what were you going to tell us, doc?" Yakko continued. The doctor stiffened in surprise, obviously having forgotten about the question.

"Ah yes, about zhe pahrty," he went on, rubbing his scalp. "Vell, I'm glad to szay zhat you Varner Brozzers vill have un excellent time at zhe pahrty..."

"And the Warner Sister," Dot prompted, but Dr. Scratchansniff shook his head.

"I'm zhorry, CinderVarner—eh, Dot," he explained, shrugging, "but you cannot go to zhe ball." He flipped open a notebook. "Your brozzers, vhile shtill kooky und inzane, are mentally shtable enough to go, but you haff some issues mit social contact."

Dot's face fell. She bent over and picked it up. "What?" she protested. Putting her face back on, she pointed at her older brothers. "I have issues with social contact?" she grumped. "Whenever they see a pretty girl, they jump into her arms and yell 'Hello Nurse'!"

"Vell, you do zhe same thing mit ze handsome men," Dr. Scratchansniff replied. "Und it'sz a bit more awkward to men to be called 'Nuurse'. Plusz, zhat pet uff yoursz." He shuddered compulsively. "No no no, you cannot go to zhe pahrty."

"PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?" Dot whined, falling to the floor. She clung to the doctor's foot even as he tried to shuffle away. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze let me go! I'll be good! Honest! I wanna goooooooooo!"

Pulling out a crowbar, Dr. Scratchansniff managed to disentangle his pantscuff from the youngest Warner's grip. "I'm zhorry," he repeated, grunting from the effort of trying to keep her off of him, "but zhat is zhat, und your brozzers vill not let you go to zhe pahrty eizzer."

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Dot continued to cry even as Yakko and Wakko grabbed her by the arms and dragged her out of the office. As the door shut, Dr. Scratchansniff wiped a bead of sweat off of his forehead.

"Zhe cusstomersz isz bad," he remarked, "but zhe pay isz guudt!"

He then began to laugh for a while before realizing that he had never actually been paid.

"Now our poor Dot was quite distraught," the narrator said sympathetically as the scene switched to the interior of the watertower. "A crisis for this little Dot; it seemed to her like quite a spot." The narrator suddenly paused in a moment of revelation. "Oh my goodness! I was a poet—and I wasn't aware!"

Dot was sitting in the middle of the large room right next to the log floe while Yakko and Wakko rooted around in the closet for suitable ballroom costumes. So far, Yakko had on a top hat and monocle while Wakko looked like he was going to a yodeling competition.

"C'moooooooon," Dot implored her brothers as Yakko confusedly found a man with black hair, bushy eyebrows, a bushier mustache and glasses hiding in the back of the closet. He tossed the Marx aside as Dot went on. "PLEEEEEEEEEASE let me go with you?" she begged. "That ol' Scratchy will never know! C'mon, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?"

Wakko stood up straighter and adjusted the suspenders on his lederhosen. Yakko tied on a red bowtie with a flourish, adding a suit jacket he'd picked up at Moe Howard's yard sale. "You heard the doc, sis," Yakko reminded her with a wicked grin, imitating the psychiatrist's voice. "No pahrty for zhe Varner Seester. She hasz szome issues mit social contact."

Crossing her arms, Dot glared stubbornly at the floor. Wakko's tongue lolled out again as he glanced back at her. "Don't worry," he assured her as he and Yakko creaked open the watertower door. "We'll bring you some food—" He burped. "If I don't eat it all."

"Fat chance," Dot grumbled as they shut the door behind them and skipped down the ladder and into the city below.

"Things looked bad for the youngest Warner," the narrator sighed. "All alone in the watertower, unable to go to the ball, locked in with no—"

"Ah, can it!" Dot snapped. "I don't need you adding to it."

The narrator fell silent. Dot sighed.

"Oh, woe is me!" she wailed dramatically, throwing herself piteously against the curved wall. "Oh, despair! Oh, this is so awful! Ohhhhhhh!" She slumped down and started sobbing. "The world is so CRUEL! What did I do to deserve this?" She sniffled delicately. "They hate me because I'm cute." At that, she began to bawl again. "OHHHHHHHH!"

After a moment, she looked up at the reader confidentially. "I'm going for an Oscar here," she hissed, "don't blow it." She then continued bawling. "OH, THIS IS TERRIBLE! ISN'T THERE ANYONE WHO CAN—"

"Dot was sobbing terribly, but at that moment," the narrator interrupted, "a miracle occurred."

The sound of a saxophone bleating out a steamy solo proved the narrator's point as a shimmer of gaudy, sparkly effects erupted into the center of the room. As the solo reached its peak, the sparkly effects resolved into the form of a woman perhaps in her twenties, a slim, well-built woman with an elegant head of blonde hair. She was wearing a nurse's uniform and also happened to have shimmering wings and a small wand with a star at the tip. She also just happened to be floating in midair.

Standing up, Dot blinked and rubbed her eyes, not believing the woman's physique. "Who're you?" she asked.

The woman smiled sweetly. "I'm your Fairy GodNurse," she explained in a smooth voice that would've made most men weep—or revert to primal states and carry her off to their caves. The nurse inclined her wand. "I heard you wanted to go to the ball?"

Dot looked up at her pointedly. "Give me a figure like yours, honey, and I won't need to go to the ball!"

The GodNurse smiled sweetly. "Sorry, little girl," she said, "this story's called 'CinderWarner', not 'SupermodelWarner'." She looked around the room. "Do you have a pumpkin for me to turn into a carriage?"

Abandoning the main room, Dot ducked into the kitchen and rooted through the cupboards, tossing out such items from it as a chicken leg, a head of lettuce, a few pots and pans, a live sea otter, an old magazine, a Roman general and a couple hundred dollars' worth of lawsuits from various fairytale characters. She returned to the main room with a small metal can. "I've got canned pumpkin!" she announced. The nurse sighed.

"Oh well," she said, then raised her wand. "Fibberty Fabio Foo!" she chanted, and the tin can full of liquidized pumpkin promptly turned into a giant tin can full of liquidized pumpkin. Dot looked first at the can, then at the GodNurse, then (for lack of a better description) raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think so," Dot informed her. The nurse shrugged apologetically.

"New wand," she explained. She shook the wand hard and dislodged some extra sparks before pointing it at the can again. This time, the liquid pumpkin completely disappeared and the can itself became somewhat of a tin soapbox racer, with the pumpkin-shaped label still on it. Dot glared at the GodNurse, then sighed.

"I guess it'll have to do," she complained long-sufferingly, then looked back up at her benefactor. "This thing got an engine or what?"

The GodNurse shook her head. "I need two white mice," she instructed, holding up two slender fingers in case Dot had trouble counting.

"Right then," the narrator recited, "two white mice just happened to scurry across the floor."

Just as this was announced, two nondescript white mice did just happen to scurry across the floor. With a cry of "Jonnity Jonnity Depp", the GodNurse pointed her wand at them and fired. In a moment the mice had been transformed into two mice on their hind legs, one tall with protrudant teeth and the other small with a large head.

"Zort!" the taller one ejaculated, flexing his hands. "That was surprising."

The shorter one's eyes widened as he realized that he could speak. "This is incredible, Pinky!" he informed the tall mouse. "I now have a more advanced intellect! Perfect for...for..." He finally came to a decision. "For taking over the world! Come, we must plan!"

At that the two mice scurried out of the watertower. Dot stared after them. "Why'm I getting a bad feeling about this?" she asked the nurse.

"Maybe because we still need something to turn into a pair of horses," the GodNurse replied indifferently, not seeming to care much about the massive force she'd just unleashed on the universe at large.

Dot sighed. "I knew it would come to this," she grumbled overdramatically, pulling out a tiny burlap sack. Rooting around in it for a moment, she managed to remove a large, tan and white dog with a black nose and a small, gray cat with green eyes.

"This looks like fun, yeah, yeah, definitely fun," the dog panted. The cat rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, Runt," she said as the two of them were suddenly turned into a pair of horses. With another flick of her wand, the GodNurse turned the Gag Bag into a harness and hooked the horses up to the tin-can buggy. Dot looked it over critically.

"Not bad," she admitted, then pointed at her skirt. "Now make like Saks."

"Raising her wand high above her head," the narrator said as the action took place, "the GodNurse chanted 'Hossely Hassely Hoff' and Dot's skirt was transformed into a GodNurse Original™."

The narrator was actually right, as Dot was now in full pink formal dress complete with poofy sleeves and pink glass slippers. Her gloves were transformed into ones that extended all the way up to her elbow, and even her tail looked curly and proper. She whistled. "Nice duds," she complimented the GodNurse. "Now I need...a driver."

The GodNurse waved her wand again and Ralph the Guard dropped out of thin air and onto the tin-can carriage. Dot sighed.

"I need to be more specific," she muttered, then clambered into her seat in the can. Sitting up straight, she instructed, "Now get this bucket of bolts to the ball!"

With a "HYAH!", Ralph snapped the reins and the horse that had previously been Runt immediately leapt through the wall, dragging the carriage as well as the Rita-horse behind him. As the screams of the passengers in free-fall over Burbank died away, the GodNurse exhaled massively.

"What I do for a living," she bemoaned, then "poof"ed away to join a Women's Rights convention.

"At Mr. Plotz's offices," the narrator continued as the scene switched to said location, "the party was going splendidly. Aside from Batman drinking a bit too much of the punch, nothing had gone wrong, and Mr. Plotz was about to introduce his star guest."

The room was a large one, something like a high school gymnasium, and filled with gaudy chandeliers, proper music and lots of tiny snacks on trays. Lots of people were there, movie stars or no, and off in the corner Yakko and Wakko could be spotted drooling over a tall, gorgeous female mink. Lots of famous caricatures I am not legally allowed to describe were milling about the room, and off to the side was Mr. Plotz staring at his watch.

"It's been hours and I haven't found a leading lady!" he agonized, then turned and spoke to a man who was completely hidden behind a curtain. "You're going to have to go out there soon!"

There came a noncommittal grunt from the other side of the curtain. Mr. Plotz sighed, then cued the spotlights towards himself.

"As everyone in the room watched," the narrator went on, "Mr. Plotz introduced the star."

"Eh, ladies and gentlemen," he announced, staring worriedly from side to side, "I'd like to introduce the star of our next picture."

A tall, handsome man with a muscular build and long brown hair sidled out from behind the curtain.

"My, eh, esteemed guests," Mr. Plotz announced, "Mel—"

"He was cut off," the narrator broke in, "by a huge noise."

Right on cue, Dot's carriage smashed right through the wall as the Runt horse skidded to a halt in the middle of the room. Ralph was sent flying into Batman and the punch bowl, the tin-can carriage landed on one of the fancy chandeliers, and Dot ricocheted right out of her seat and into the star actor's arms.

"Hell-lo Mr. Lethal Weapon!" she cried, latching onto him possessively.

"The entire audience was aghast!" the narrator described.

"We're aghast!" the audience gasped.

"I've got a leading lady!" Mr. Plotz realized in relief, hopping up and down.

"And I've got a wife!" the star cried as he pressed Dot close to him and—

—————————————————————

"HEY!" Yakko broke in, interrupting Dot in her storytelling. He poked his finger at her accusatorily. "This isn't a story! This's selfish fantasizing!"

Dot narrowed her eyes as Wakko took the book back. "You two ruin all my fun," she grumbled.

—END—