-Sadly, I do not own any of the Warner Bros. characters. But it would be so amazing if I did.
PROLOUGUE:
As Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner slept snugly in their water-tower room, evil was afoot. A dark shadow crept to the stained glass window that the Warner kids had put up that very evening and peered in at the sleeping children.
"Mel Gibson…" Dot Warner muttered in her sleep. She smiled dreamily before rolling over in her portion of the triple bunk-beds. She was in the middle. Yakko was on the bunk below her and Wakko was on the bunk above her.
The shadow slowly crept to the large Warner Bros. emblem on the side of the tower, which also served as a door, and opened it slowly. It creaked and the shadow paused as Wakko jerked in his sleep. He barked, and then nestled back into his spot. The shadow stepped into the water-tower and slipped on a roller skate lying haphazardly in the middle of the floor.
"WHOA, WHOA!" the shadow shouted, waving its arms all around. It finally fell on its backside and the skate went flying into the darkness. "Lousy kids," the shadow grumbled as it got up. The tense, suspenseful moment was officially ruined.
Dot snored slightly and rolled over again. The shadow crept to her bed and stared at her before lifting its great big hands. Dot awoke with a start and looked up at the bulky darkness. She opened her mouth to scream loud enough to wake the dead, but a massive, meaty paw covered her mouth and she fainted.
AND NOW, OUR STORY!
"Yakko!" Wakko's voice called over me. "Yakko, wake up!" I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright and hitting my head on Dot's bunk.
"YEOWCH!" I exclaimed. I rubbed the sore spot between my ears and looked at Wakko accusingly. "What?" I grouched. I was never a very happy camper in the morning.
"Dot's gone!" Wakko shouted.
"WHAT?!" I leapt out of bed and climbed the ladder to Dot's bunk. Sure enough, there was no sign of my little sister. "Dot?" I called in confusion. "Sister Sibling?" No luck.
"She's been kidnapped!" Wakko cried. He hugged my waist and started sobbing into my hip. I looked at him, still groggy.
"She's been kidnapped?" I asked in a daze. Wakko looked at me and I noticed he had snot dripping from his nose. I grimaced before wiping it away. "Well," I sighed, taking matters into my own hands, "the first thing we need to do is calm down. Maybe Dot just ran out for coffee and doughnuts this morning."
"Dot doesn't drink coffee," Wakko pointed out, again on the verge of tears. "And she's been trying to lay off the sweets since that movie star told her she was getting a little plump 'round the edges."
"Ah, right," I groaned. I'd totally forgotten about that.
"What'll we do without Dot, Yakko?" Wakko sobbed.
"I dunno," I shrugged. We were a family, a set; like Civil War chess pieces from the Franklin Mint! Without Dot, Wakko and I were like a sail without wind, a rainforest without rain, William Shatner without that toupee!
Wakko started to wail again. Slowly, the tears filled up the water-tower until I could (and did) paddle up to Wakko in a canoe. I had to admit, I hadn't gotten to use that old boat for quite some time now.
"WAKKO!" I shouted over the sound of Wakkogra Falls. "WAKKO, CALM DOWN!" Wakko sniffled and rubbed his eyes. "I don't like this as much as you do," I explained. "I love Dot too. What we need to do is figure out a plan."
"Why don't we tell Mr. Plotz about it?" Wakko suggested.
"Uuuuuuhhhhhhh I don't think so," I shrugged. "I have this feeling that Mr. Plotz wouldn't be exactly mortified to hear Dot's gone. In fact, he might go out of his way to keep us from finding her."
"I guess you're right," Wakko agreed.
"You know what this means, don't you?" I asked.
"What?" Wakko returned.
"This is the beginning, the beginning of our story!" I sang cheesily. Wakko smiled a little. "I thought I could crack a smile out of my little brother," I grinned. "No. What it means is that we have to go out and find her ourselves." Wakko looked scared.
"Are you sure that's the best route, Yakko?" he asked. I was rather taken aback. Usually, Wakko was full-on with my schemes. Or was I full-on with his schemes. Either way, it was odd that he wasn't full-on with this scheme.
"Why not?" I questioned.
"Well, we're only two kids…and…" Wakko's voice trailed off. Gee. He was really taking this Dot thing hard.
"We've been able to sock some sense into a whole lotta villains," I pointed out. I walked over to Wakko and put my skinny arm around his shoulder. "Why's this any different?"
"It's just that…We don't have…" Wakko didn't seem able to finish a sentence.
"Dot?" I asked simply. Wakko blushed. I was a little annoyed. I was the brains of the outfit. Dot was the heart. And Wakko was a tossup between the spleen and the pancreas. Together, we were a well-oiled machine, it was true. But sometimes Wakko and I pulled some jobs without our sister knowing it.
Like going out on the town late one night, for instance! Dot had never found out that Wakko and I took a nice evening stroll to TP Dr. Scratchansniff's office building. She was upset that she couldn't have been a part of it, but that was the whole reason we excluded her sometimes. (Besides the fact that Wakko and I sometimes needed time to be Brother-to-Brother.) We loved teasing Dot extremely, but the thought that the Warner Brothers were nothing without their Sister was just insanity.
"C'mon, Wakko," I grinned, "we can do stuff without Dot. Think of all the stuff we got away with as kids! In that one year that Dot wasn't born, we must have pulled at least sixty pranks!"
"I know…But…" Wakko was still blushing and he was still having a hard time putting things together. "It's just that Dot really helps us out most of the time. I don't think we can rescue her without her help!" I rolled my eyes. That was the most ridiculous thing Wakko had ever said to me.
Don't get me wrong. I get this feeling that most of the readers out there are thinking I'm a big, fat jerk. But, keep in mind that I had just been woken up, my head still hurt from its recent collision with Dot's bunk, and Wakko was being really bizarre this morning.
"We have to rescue her without her help," I grimaced. "We wouldn't have to rescue her if she was here to help in the first place!"
"Oh," Wakko said softly. He still looked a little insecure. So, I decided to cheer him up.
"Just think how happy Dot'll be if we save her all by ourselves," I cooed. I painted the picture of saving Dot from a herd of wild buffalo and her never having to worry about us again.
"You are the best brothers a girl could have!" she'd say. Wakko seemed happier with this prospect and we soon were packing to save the day.
.......
"Ah," I sighed. "Don't you just love a good plot hole?" Wakko and I were now jogging along a deserted road.
"Wait…What?" he asked in obliviousness. I rolled my eyes again.
"Plot hole," I repeated. "You know…That big swirly thing that always represents passage of time? How we toons get from one place to another besides walking or taking the bus?"
"Oh!" Wakko exclaimed in recognition. "That? I thought that was just there to make us dizzy between scenes!"
"Well, it does that anyway," I shrugged. "Poor planning on the director's part." There was a shout of indignation from some far-off place (also known as, the director's chair located directly off-set).
"Anyway," Wakko continued, "do we even have any clues to go on, Yakko?"
"Plot holes," I whispered confidentially to the audience. "You can get so much lost going through them." I turned back to the scene. "We did have, but I think it got lost when we went through Transylvania."
"That Mr. Dracula sure was nice," Wakko grinned. "A little pale though."
"And his dental hygiene was questionable too," I added. I paused to wiggle my eyebrows. (Yes. I have eyebrows.) "Now the only question is who would want to kidnap Dot?"
"The mafia?" Wakko suggested.
"Nah," I shrugged. "We patched things up with them last week."
"How 'bout aliens?" he asked. I opened my mouth to say something, changed my mind, and said something else.
"Maybe." For a while, we just walked in silence. This was odd because we normally bounced all over the place. Finally, I looked out past the shot. "Alright, if we don't have any more lines in this scene, why don't you fade us out, already?!"
"Yakko, we still have more to go," our director's voice rang from the other end of the camera. "Wakko, it's your line." Wakko looked up, startled. He had been examining some kind of footprint in the dust.
"Sorry," he blushed. "I was looking at this mark on the road."
"That was your line, Wakko. Someone get me an Aspirin, quick. I feel a migraine coming on," the director moaned.
"Right," Wakko smiled. "I get it! Lookie here, Yakko! Footprints!"
"Say, you're right, Wakko," I agreed. "And there're more of them going down the road."
"D'you think they could've been the ones who kidnapped Dot?" Wakko asked. He scratched his head, moving his red cap just slightly up on his forehead.
"Maybe," I answered. "We'll have to follow them to make sure. C'mon!"
Wakko and I followed the trail of footprints for a long while up the dusty road.
"That reminds me," Wakko brought up suddenly, "how'd we even know where to go? Aren't we just taking a wild stab at where Dot was taken?"
"Yep," I answered. "Total, complete guess." Wakko nodded in understanding, though not understanding at all.
"Just a quick question," he added. "Why?"
"Because our writers were on strike and the director had to come up with this one all by himself," I shrugged. The director protested again, but he soon shushed himself, telling us to continue with the scene if we wanted to keep our jobs.
......
"I'm really getting tired of that 'plot hole' thing, Yakko," Wakko complained as we recovered from the swirly time-change element. I attempted to stand up from my position on the side of the road, but I was too dizzy.
"Yeah," I agreed, my voice cracking slightly. "I have to admit, that's getting old fast."
"Hey, look!" Wakko exclaimed. He pointed in the direction of a huge building. It looked much like a factory: tall, gray, spurting ugly looking smoke into the air from high stacks.
"And the plot thickens, ladies and gentlemen," I grinned to the audience. I turned to Wakko. "You figure Dot could be in there?"
"Maybe," Wakko shrugged. "I'm not the one who reads the script five times before we start shooting."
"Hey, now," I warned. "Just because I like knowing what happens at the end of each episode does not make me stuffy."
"GUYS! FOCUS, PLEASE!" our director screamed in agony. "WE ONLY HAVE TEN MINUTES LEFT FOR FILMNG TIME! We have to get this puppy to editing before noon!"
"Okay, okay!" I whined. "We'll get it in before noon. Just relax, would you?" The director made an unrecognizable shriek from off-set and Wakko covered his ears.
"Let's check it out," Wakko muttered. He pulled out his trusty mallet and held it malevolently above his head. "All I can say is 'If Dot's in there, there's gonna be a world of trouble.'"
"Since when did you get so aggressive, Wakko?" I asked.
"When someone messes with my little sister, they mess with me," Wakko said darkly. I whistled and thrust my hands in my deep pockets.
"Wow, Wakko. Didn't know you had it in you," I sighed. We snuck up to the building to find two muscle-y guards keeping the front door perfectly covered…Literally. "Guess we have to find our own way," I shrugged.
"I'll handle it!" Wakko exclaimed cheerily. Gee. Was he having mood-swings or what? We rushed around to the back of the building to find a completely smooth wall. No entrances, no nothing. It was pretty bland.
"One door?" I asked in confusion. "They must have some fire drill." Wakko pulled out his Gag Bag and reached deep into its contents.
"Here we go," he announced. He pulled out a very tall ladder and set it against the side of the building.
"Getting less original, Wakko," I warned. "You'd better work on that. I would've thought the Bat Hook or suction cups would've been better for this situation."
"Didn't bring 'em," Wakko shrugged. "Just brought the ladder and the trampoline."
"Eh, you'll get 'em next time," I said, brushing it off. We shimmied up the ladder and found ourselves on an intricate rooftop.
"Now this is more like it," Wakko grinned. There was a maze of entryways and vent systems. Shafts dotted the roof like spots on a dirty old carpet. Wakko pulled a crowbar out of his Gag Bag and looked evilly at a vent opening.
"Hold on there, Speedy," I exclaimed. "Before we go destroying someone's property for no reason, we should listen to see if Dot's even in the building."
"Shucks," Wakko groaned, "that's never bothered you before."
"Yeah," I agreed, "but we got a complaint from some parents saying that their kids were starting to break things for no reason."
"Oh," Wakko nodded. "I see." We lowered our heads to the vent and listened.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"She's down there," we muttered together. Wakko grabbed the crowbar and began to pry the vent off the shaft. It wouldn't budge.
"It won't move," he panted. He attempted again, but couldn't get it off.
"You know what this means, don't you?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. Wakko looked at me and smiled evilly.
"Explosives?" he grinned.
"Explosives," I nodded. I reached into my pants' pocket and pulled out two sticks of dynamite, already lit. I quickly shoved them in between the slats of the vent and Wakko and I dove behind a small mound in the metal for protection.
KABOOM! The dynamite went off and a rush of red, orange, and yellow pulsed through the air. Wakko covered his ears and I cringed slightly. I was more used to explosions that Wakko was. He was more used to anvils falling from nowhere in particular.
When the blast was subsiding, we raced out and tried to pull the grate off the shaft. It was still stuck tight. Wakko and I pulled on it, but there was no luck.
"Two sticks of perfectly good explosives…wasted," I grimaced. Wakko started to cry in frustration. I put my hands over my face, trying to think of something. "AHA!" I finally announced. "I have an idea!"
"What?" Wakko asked, sniffling.
"Plot hole," I grinned. I walked up to the camera, put both my hands on it, and gave it a spin.
......
"Hey, it worked!" Wakko rejoiced. We were now creeping through a long hallway, following Dot's cries.
"I thought it might," I smirked. "Now if we could only find the room where Dot's being held against her will."
We came do a door. Wakko looked up and pointed at the label. It read: Room For Holding Captives Against Their Will.
"Well that was easy," I shrugged. Wakko and I struggled to push the door open. "Again with the not-moving obstacles," I grimaced. "Does the director hate us or what?" Some insane laughter was heard from off-set. "I'm gonna take that as a yes," I sighed.
Wakko still pushed at the door. He stopped for a moment, just staring at it. There was a look of longing in his eyes.
"Forget it Wakko," I said, my head hung low. "We'll never be able to save Dot." Wakko opened his mouth widely and took a huge bite out of the very center of the door. "Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh I could be wrong," I shrugged. "That's our little garbage disposal!" I added.
Wakko and I leapt into the room heroically to find Dot tied to a chair. We quickly ran to her and untied her.
"Guys!" she exclaimed. She jumped up from her seat and hugged us both. Then, she stood back and looked at us critically. "Sheesh. You guys didn't think I could handle this on my own?"
"Huh?" Wakko and I asked in unison.
"We don't have to do everything together," Dot rolled her eyes. I looked straight at the camera.
"How ironic," I muttered.
We began to fade out, but I caught the closing circle with my hands and peeped out.
"HEY!" I shouted. "We're not done yet!"
"But we're out of filming time!" the director protested. "We have to send this cartoon in to the editor NOW!"
"Well at least tell us who kidnapped Dot," I complained. "What kind of sick, twisted man would kidnap Dot for absolutely no reason at all?"
"Um…Actually…You see…" The director's voice trailed off.
"You never even got to it?!" Wakko exclaimed.
"This is why we have paid writers," I grimaced. "They actually finish the episodes."
"Well, how am I supposed to do that?" the director grumped.
"Just fade us out, already," Wakko, Dot, and I all whined at once.
END