Disclaimer: Wicked is not mine. This was inspired by watching Blues Clues with my 13-year-old younger brother on Thanksgiving. You might say people are OOC, but that's the whole point with a children's show. Nobody acts normal. It's kind of post-musical, and all the characters know everything (like the Wizard is Elphaba's dad) Story time! -LostOzian
Palace Playhouse is brought to you by the Corporation Public Broadcasting and by The Wolf's Bakery: Cakes so good you wouldn't want them on your worst enemy, and by contributions from view- readers like you. Thank you.
"And now, it's time for Palace Playhouse!" a mysterious voice announced. The lights came up on a pretty pink-and-green bedroom in the Emerald Palace, with a big slide in the back. Suddenly, a blonde woman in a sparkly blue ball gown came plummeting down the slide, shrieking with delight as she went. She finally came to a stop at the bottom, retrieving a tiara and snowflake wand off of hooks on the wall.
"That was fun!" she said brightly, before waving. "Hi there! Ready to have fun at the Palace Playhouse?"
A group of about five or six invisible four-year-olds chorused, "Yes! Yes!" Glinda smiled, bouncing one last time.
"All right then! Let's get started having fun!" she said, but she stopped, looking confused. "But I feel like I'm forgetting something… What was it?" The Good Witch tapped her chin a few times with her wand. "Do you know what I've forgotten?"
"Elphaba! Elphaba!" The invisible kids chanted. Glinda brightened significantly.
"Oh yeah! Elphie!" Glinda turned around to stand at the bottom of the slide. "Elphie!" she called up to the top. "Elphaba, c'mon down!"
A second later, a green woman in a black hat came down the slide. Though it didn't look like she had as much fun as the bubbly woman had. In fact, the green Elphaba had her wrists and ankles tied and a gag stuffed in her mouth. She bumped uncomfortably onto the mat at the bottom, and Glinda giggled again.
"Elphie! There you are!" she said, practically disregarding the fact her friend was tied up. Elphaba looked up at Glinda, clearly thinking about mean things, like killing people. Killing people is a bad thing to do. Glinda reached down and pulled the gag out of Elphaba's mouth.
"Glinda, for Oz name, what is going on?! I thought the Gale Force had gotten me!" Elphaba spat once to get the taste of the cloth gag out of her mouth.
"Ah, ah, ah, don't spit, Elphie," Glinda scolded with a smile, proceeding to untie Elphaba's wrists. "There's no spitting in the Palace Playhouse!"
"The… what?" Elphaba's eyes widened with unmasked disgust mixed with fear.
"The Palace Playhouse!" Glinda stood up and twirled as Elphaba started to untie her ankles. "A magical playhouse full of fun, with yours truly, Glinda the Good, and Elphaba Thropp!" Elphaba looked up at Glinda.
"No," the Green Witch said. "No. I am not taking part in some… some…"
"Good healthy fun!" Glinda finished Elphaba's sentence. "Which brings me to today's theme!"
"Sweet Oz, there are themes?!" Elphaba looked sick. Well, she always looked kind of sick, but now she had an expression to match it.
"Yep!" Glinda turned her back to Elphaba, speaking to the children. "Today's theme is things that are opposites! Like Elphaba was saying 'no'. 'No' is the opposite of 'yes'! And we're going to look around for other things that are opposites, too!" Elphaba had successfully untied her feet, and stood up to tower over Glinda.
"Let me get this straight," she said. "We're going to run around, like idiots, looking for things that are opposite of each other, wasting time and energy doing something that we did when we were toddlers?!" Glinda gaped at her.
"OhmiOz!" she said. "Elphaba is tall and I am short! That's another opposite!" Glinda turned away from Elphaba to declare her discovery to all Oz. "Tall is the opposite of short!" Elphaba slapped a hand to her forehead.
"Somebody, shoot me in the face," she begged, but nobody listened.
"Elphaba and I are opposites in a lot of ways!" Glinda continued. "Like our hair, her hair is dark and mine is light! And she likes black and I like white! And she's green and I'm pinkish!"
"Glinda, bring up the green one more time, I dare you…" Elphaba threatened. Glinda wasn't paying attention, and hugged Elphaba instead.
"But we're still the best of friends!" she said, smiling broadly. Elphaba shut her eyes and counted to three.
Then, someone outside started shouting. Glinda ran to the window and opened it, looking down into the garden.
"Oh, look, Elphie!" Glinda squealed. "It's Fiyero the Scarecrow and Boq the Tin Man!" Elphaba looked up at the mention of the two men.
"Where?" she asked. "They might actually be acting normal."
"They're at the bottom of this slide!" Glinda said, opening up a section of the wall to show another slide.
"Oh no," Elphaba said. "No, Glinda, I hate slides…"
"More opposites!" Glinda grabbed Elphaba and shoved her down the slide. "Because I love them!"
Elphaba came out the other side considerably annoyed. She had lost her hat somewhere in the slide, had screamed in a quite undignified manner on the way down, and to top it all off, Glinda landed on top of her a second later. She bit back a nasty word as Glinda rolled off, and declined Glinda's offer to be helped up.
The two Witches now had a better view of what was going on in the garden. Boq and Fiyero were standing in front of an empty vegetable garden, Boq looking annoyed and Fiyero looking upset.
"Hi, Boq! Hi, Fiyero! What's going on?" Glinda asked. The two turned to her.
"Glinda, there you are! We need help," Boq said.
"We know we want to plant vegetables in our garden, but we're not sure which of these seeds will be vegetables and which are fruits!" Fiyero waved around a few packets of seeds with pictures on the front. Elphaba's jaw dropped.
"You… have got… to be kidding me." Elphaba said. Glinda ignored her.
"Hey! Fruits are the opposite of vegetables! But, that's a toughie," she said, before addressing the invisible four-year-olds. "Well? Will you help Boq and Fiyero decide what to plant in their garden?"
"Yes! Yes!" the unseen kids said. Glinda beamed.
"Great!" she said. "What's first?"
"First is corn," Fiyero said, showing the packet to Glinda. Elphaba hid her eyes behind her hand.
"Now I know you are kidding me," Elphaba said, only to be ignored.
"Well? What do you think?" Glinda said to the invisi-kids. "Is corn a vegetable?"
"Glinda, of course corn is a vegetable," Elphaba said, but the kids cut across her, shouting out, "It's a vegetable!" Glinda smiled cheerily.
"That's right!" she said, passing the packet to Boq. "Corn's a vegetable!"
"I could have told you that," Elphaba complained, feeling her brain rot with every passing second.
"What's next?" Glinda asked.
"Next is strawberries," Fiyero said, giving Glinda a package with a bright red berry on it.
"Hmm," Glinda said. "Are strawberries vegetables?"
"They are berries," Elphaba said sharply. "Berries are fruits!"
"Elphie, let the kids answer," Boq hissed as the mysterious children shouted out, "Fruits! Strawberries are fruits!" The Green Witch groaned in frustration.
"Great job!" Glinda said brightly, throwing the packet over her shoulder. "What's next? We're on a roll!"
"Next is cucumbers," Fiyero gave Glinda more seeds. Elphaba curled up in a ball and tried not to listen to them.
"Let's see," Glinda showed the packet to the invisible kids. "Are cucumbers vegetables?"
"Yes! Yes!" Glinda passed the packet to Boq.
"There we go!" she said. "What's next?"
"Next are apples!" This time, Elphaba could not remain silent.
"APPLES?!" she exploded. "How in Oz are you planning to put apples in a stupid garden! Apples grow on trees! They're fruits only found on flowering trees! You'd be growing a whole tree in the garden, and you won't even get apples on it until years later! Honestly, you three have reputations of not being the sharpest tools in the shed, but I had at least assumed you were smarter than this! Well, I guess I was wrong!" Elphaba was almost crying now. Glinda, Boq, and Fiyero all just looked at her.
"That's another opposite," Glinda said. "Elphie's mean and I'm nice." Elphaba gaped at her. "Please, just play nicely, Elphie. We all want to have fun." Boq and Fiyero nodded pleadingly. Elphaba bit her tongue, then turned away so she wouldn't do anything wicked. Glinda tossed the apple seeds over her shoulder.
"The last one is peas," Fiyero said, giving Glinda the final packet.
"Ooh, I like peas," Glinda said, before stopping with the predictable question, "Are peas vegetables?" A second passed as the Kids thought it over.
"Yes! Yes!" Everyone smiled one last time as Glinda gave the pea packet to Boq.
"There! I hope we helped!" Glinda said.
"Oh, yes! You helped a bunch!" Boq told her. Glinda turned to the kids at home.
"And so did you! Thanks for helping!" she said, giving them a thumbs up.
"Can we go now?" Elphaba asked, the reality setting in that there was no way to talk her friends out of this nightmare.
"Oh yeah! I just thought of another opposite!" Glinda said, bouncing away from Boq and Fiyero's garden.
"Which is…?" Elphaba waited for Glinda to fill in the blank.
"It's a surprise, silly!" Glinda said, conjuring up a bubble. "Let's fly first!"
"Can I just use my broom?" Elphaba asked. "Wait… Where's my... Who took my broom?!" Glinda waved her hand.
"Stop worrying and just come with me by bubble!" she said.
"Glinda, we already went over this, we can't all come and go by bubble-" It was no use. Glinda grabbed on to Elphaba and dragged her into the bubble, taking off before Elphaba could try to get out of it.
"At least tell me where this infernal floating sphere is going!" Elphaba demanded.
"You'll see! That's another opposite, I am patient and Elphaba is not!" Glinda said happily.
"I am patient! This pointless game of yours is causing me to quickly lose what little patience I have left!" Elphaba argued as Glinda brought the bubble down.
"We're here! That was quick!" Glinda said, popping the bubble. Elphaba stumbled a little, unaccustomed to bubble travel.
"Indeed…" she said. "So what are we here to see?" Glinda merely laughed and opened a big formal-looking door.
"Your Ozness!" she called. "It's us, Glinda and Elphie!" The menacing metal head raised its eyebrows in surprise, then fell, lifeless, as the Wizard came out from behind the curtain.
"Hello there, Glinda! Elphaba!" he said brightly.
"Dad," Elphaba deadpanned. Glinda took over.
"Well, today we're looking around for opposites, so we thought of you because you lie all the time, and lies are the opposite of truth!" The Wizard looked down, smiling.
"Yeah, I do tend to bend the truth a little, now don't I?" he said cheerily.
"Actually, Glinda, lies and truth might not be complete opposites," Elphaba said. "I mean, look at historical facts. A while ago, people believed that the world was flat, and that was a fact, but when we found out it was round, that didn't make the 'world is flat' fact into a lie."
"Elphie, that's too big of a thought for right now," Glinda said. "We're going for easy opposites!"
"Yes, but you might be wrong!" Elphaba tried to keep arguing, but Glinda bopped her on the head with her wand.
"Well, I just came to tell you that we were finding opposites, and you reminded me of one!" Glinda told the Wizard. He tipped his hat.
"Glad to help you girls," he said, before opening up a section of the wall to reveal… another slide.
"Oh, Oz, save me," Elphaba said, staring at the gaping hole as Glinda shoved her down, head-first.
"Down we go!" she said, before following her friend. "Wheeee!"
Elphaba landed at the bottom, to find herself back in the original Playhouse bedroom set. She rolled out of the way of the slide just in time to avoid getting hit by Glinda. Glinda merely stood up and fussed with her dress a bit, but Elphaba was practically deranged.
"Please…" she said. "Please, no more slides, no more opposites, no more G-rated happiness designed to immobilize our children… Something M-rated…When I open my eyes, I want to be in a bar with illegal drugs and strippers… Ready… set…" Elphaba opened her eyes, and was sorely disappointed to find she was still at the Palace Playhouse.
"Oh, goodness, is that the time?!" Glinda looked at a miniature Time Dragon Clock. "That means it's time to go!" She took her wand and tiara and put them back on the original hooks on the wall.
"Lurline, Unnamed God, whichever of you is real, I swear eternal devotion…" Elphaba mumbled, clasping her hands in prayer.
"But Elphie and I will be right here tomorrow, so make sure to tune in! We'll miss you!" Elphaba froze.
"You mean we're going to go through this every single day?" she asked. Glinda nodded perkily.
"Bye bye now!" she said to the children watching as Elphaba broke down in sobs.
Okay, I don't really have ideas for more 'episodes' for this, but I'm going to leave it as an open-ended fic that if anyone has an idea for the next episode of Palace Playhouse, then they can send it to me (I swear on the Hat that I will give them credit). The only rule is everyone else has to act like the hosts of children's shows or something and Elphaba cannot. Hope that was funny! -LostOzian