fan-written bloopers for SkyHighDisco's "Pennywise and the Losers Club"

Background OST: "Hangin' Tough" by NKOtB (instrumental)
- or -
"Alexander's Ragtime Band"

Written with cast names in mind.

Chronological order. Real-life chapters excluded because, reality.

"Annd... action!"

"Fore!"

Startled, Jack's grip on the 'club' slips.

Bill actually yelps and dives aside (much to the dismay of the makeup effects staff), out of the stick's careening flight path.

Now the target of their mutually aggravated looks (never minding the offscreen crew's callous laughter), Finn steps into frame and holds his hands up, a frantic I-come-in-peace gesture, turning to address the camera as though it were obvious.

"What? What? Aren't you supposed to yell that as you take a swing?"

Boombox situated, Jeremy inserts a tape and presses 'play'.

Turned up to 11, AC/DC blares: "IF YOU WANT BLOOD, YOU'VE GOT IT!"

Bombarded by the blasting rock noise, the cast simultaneously shriek and cover their ears.

"Cut!" Andy calls from offscreen. "Cut it out!"

Jeremy fumbles for the boombox's 'stop' button, even as the camera crew begin to snicker.

"The hell, who switched the tapes?!"

"Where are those guys? I'll..." Finn trails off to awkward silence, slipping up as he forgets his line. Looking around at his fellow castmembers' waiting expressions, he fumbles to get back into character. "Wait. I got it. Ahem. Okay. Where are those guys? I'll start...' Ah, crap. What was it again?" From offscreen, a grip stage-whispers the forgotten line aloud. Much to Finn's now-rambling despondence. "Carrots? Really? Oh, don't let me get 'carrotted' away, then."

Jackson facepalms, giggling helplessly, even as the others begin to crack up. Jack reaches over to playfully shove Finn out of frame, as if he were an embarassment. "The hell are you even saying, dude?"

Letting himself topple over, Finn falls on flat his back, arms outstretched theatrically, "I don't know anymore! The insanity, it's too much!"

Walking on lake ice in treadless clown shoes while covered in roughly 50 additional pounds of makeup and uncomfortable costume, oversized contact lenses jammed into your eyeballs rendering you half-blind.

Struggling to keep his balance, Bill has had better ideas than agreeing to this gig.

"Deleted scene. Deleted scene. Please, be a deleeeted scene."

BTS CUECARD:

Wish granted, big guy.

With the set secure, Andy takes his place behind the camera, script in hand. "All right, guys, ready?"

Silence answers him.

"Guys?"

He looks up.

Two weeks worth of work, averaging maybe a combined three hours of sleep per night between them, his stars - Bill and Jaeden, both in costume, have already dozed off on the couch before Poltergeist has started.

"What?" Andy glares at the nearest assistant cameraman, holding the clapperboard ready, who shrugs helplessly. "I looked away for a second. They just sat down."

"Medic!"

Crash.

Neibolt's front door gives a lurch, but does not fly open as scripted.

"Ow! Medic, set medic! For reals-ies!"

In the interests of methodology, Bill gives the Rubik's cube a fair try.

'Fair try' being all of 30 seconds before it goes rolling across the floor. "Oookay, forget that. Can we have the already-solved one, please?"

"Someone have a camera? This is so - "

Wyatt's voice pipes up from off camera: "Not going on Tumblr, Finn. Don't even think about it."

"Aww..."

"Cut!"

"Well, Doctor K, looks like you saved the day again - hey! No! Personal space! Personal space is being invaded!"

Finn flubs his line, suddenly caught in a beartrap of a hug, face pressed uncomfortably close to his grimy costar's.

Much to the amusement of cast and crew all around them.

"Aww, thanks, pal. Couldn't'a done it without ya."

Action scenes - by definition - are just no fun to shoot.

And even less fun to act in.

But somehow, Jack manages.

Watching Sophia demonstrate with the marble and stryofoam cup, preparing for their close up, Bill has a strange look on his painted-up face. Half amused, half dismayed, like he doesn't know which emotion to get behind.

The innocently-dubbed Behind-The-Scenes cameraman has the bad judgement to ask: "What'cha thinking, Bill?"

"I'm thinking... Man, life was boring before the Internet."

"Thanks, Cheetah."

Breaking eye contact, Bill raises an eyebrow (as best he can) at a disturbance somewhere to the left of frame. Emotional scenes are tough enough without some nobody laughing off-stage. "You! Don't think I don't see you laughing over there!"

Even as one hapless set person is shamed into silence, Wyatt and the rest of the camera crew, of course, crack up.

"And?"

"Is he alive?"

"Why didn't he call?"

"Is he hospitalized?"

"Is he in the coffin already?"

"Which is better, s'moresorhotcocoa?"

Finn fires off one last unscripted question before Andy can call "cut", much to the amusement of everyone around him.

"Wait, what?"

"S'mores or hot cocoa?" Finn enunciates, directly to camera, completely straight-faced. "That's the REAL question here."

Reduced to a grotesque stand-in shrine in hellish surroundings, beholden to the wizards of practical effects for this shot, our lone actor kneels on the floor, form obscured by the thick stage-smoke being pumped onto the set. Everything holds steady for about five seconds.

Until Bill winces, coughs, and squints. The smoke burns his eyes, but no more than the pupilless Deadite contacts do.

"So, you wanna be an actor, son," he rasps, directly into the lens. "Let me tell you how fun it is."

As our BTS cameraman roams, he finds our director humming to himself.

"Oranges and lemons, oranges and lemons..."

Andy glances over at the waiting lemon wedge, sitting innocently on a plate atop a folding table just adjescent to his director's chair.

"Oranges." He smirks, turning to glance sidelong at the camera. "Oh, we're gonna have a time with that."

Boop.

"Last time you asked us not to look, we didn't walk right for a week!"

Boop.

"Last time you asked us not to look, guess what? We looked anyway! It wasn't that bad."

Boop.

"Last time you asked us not to look, someone wrote DUNCE across my forehead with a Sharpie. I still don't know who it was."

Boop.

"Last time you asked us not to look, there wasn't enough of Jeremy left to fill a thimble!"

The absurdness of Jack's latest improv attempt quickly has his castmates collapsing with laughter.

"What?!"

Chosen ruffles a still-giggling Jeremy's hair. "That's okay. We found another one!"

Boop.

Duun-dun... Duun-dun... dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun -

A close-up of Bill's yellow-contact-englared eyes in the tall grass falls suddenly flat (insert record scratch sound effect here), as someone from the crew thinks it funny and/or helpful to play the JAWS theme over a nearby speaker.

As if he needs it.

"Really? Can you get any more obvious?"

Animal magnetism.

Jeremy Ray Taylor does not have it. At least, not for this costar.

"Can't we just leave him that way?" he asks a set grip, poised to lift a towel off the sleeping parrot's cage. "There's enough racket around here without him."

Bill, stooped over to let an assistant touch up his facepaint, hears this. "Hey!"