Tiny Toon Adventures:

"Comedy Rules"

Rated T for gratuitous cartoon villainy.

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Disclaimer: "Tiny Toon Adventures," Tiny Toon Adventures characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.

Sticky Bun

April Fools Day dawned, clear and sunny, to find Calamity tweaking the final calculations on his brand new Beep Warp XL1000. The small grey coyote stepped back, running a critical eye over the roadrunner slowing machine. The school genius stood in front of the Acme grocery store where he had just finished attaching a horizontal racetrack loop to the storefront awning so that it was positioned overhead a neat "X" on the sidewalk. After consulting his blueprints one last time he stood on a stepladder and adjusted the suspended racetrack loop and carefully set his specially retrofitted remote controlled toy racing car at the starting line. The trap was a bit more elaborate than was his wont, and normally he wouldn't even consider bringing it on-line until after extensive testing, but Calamity had stayed out late last night with his studies and didn't have the luxury of time. Especially considering Professor Wile E.'s warning about losing focus and letting his real studies slip. If all went well, this project would cover both his entrapment and invention homework assignments.

Buster, Babs, and Plucky were also on their way to school. Plucky was dripping wet. The little green duck had tried to get a head start on the April Fools Day shenanigans. He had already tried the Seltzer Water trick and the Good Year Blimp shtick, but both had backfired on the hapless mallard. Babs stopped abruptly, causing a pileup of toons behind her. Indignation started building behind her bright bunny-button blue eyes.

"What is with you bunnies!?" Plucky complained as he found himself tumbled to the ground for the second day in a row. First Buster, now it was Babs causing the pileup. "You guys ought to install backup lights in those cottontails of yours."

"Boy, the nerve of some people! The hairball's not even waiting until school starts to try and take me out of the competition!" Babs ducked into a nearby hardware store and emerged seconds later with a bucket of Acme Super Glue.

"Uh, Babs, what are you talking about?" Buster looked up the street aways and spied Calamity at work on his invention. The young inventor was pouring a small pile of birdseed onto the sidewalk. The blue bunny then noticed Babs' bucket of glue. "Uh oh. Wait, Babs! What do you think you're doing!"

"To beat the enemy, you need to think like the enemy!" Babs claimed as she stalked toward the coyote's contraption.

"But not BECOME the enemy! Babsy, think what you're doing!" Buster's exclamation fell on deaf, pink ears. That was birdseed baiting the trap, not carrots!

"I am. I'm winning!" A grin of eager excitement set Babs' face. Babs' smile then softened as she looked back at a worried Buster. "Hey, I got it handled! Don't worry. Just step back, relax, and Watch and Learn."

"BABSY!!"

Calamity looked up when he heard the shout. The grey coyote's eyes popped wide open at the sight of pink furry fury stalking toward him with a bucket. Just as Babs stepped under the grocery store awning with the bucket of glue cocked and ready to throw, the young genius whipped out a remote control from his body pocket and started his race car.

Miniature rocket boosters ignited and the toy race car zipped around the overhead track faster and faster, casting off sparks and distortion waves until it sped too fast to follow with the naked eye. The distortion waves traveled down to the sidewalk, causing a micro spacial time-warp anomaly that put the bunny in slow motion.

"I - 'l - l -- g - e - t -- y - o - u, -- C - a - l - a - m - i - t - y! - ! - !" Babs voices sounded very low and slow. The gooey glue slowly drifted up from the bucket and started its lazy arc over to the coyote.

Walking home again after yet another fruitless night of world conquering, Pinky and the Brain passed by the toonsters. Pinky was pulling a large, white sack perched on top of a roller skate. The ploy to obtain bailout money was a complete fiscal fiasco due to the unfortunate discovery that the dummy industry was headed by a mouse. Oddly enough, Pinky did better at money making than Brain did, having ended up lost on several bus tours where he took and sold pictures of sightseers with his camera.

Catching sight of Calamity and Babs' 'test run' of the temporal warp device, the Brain whipped out a calculator that was fully as big as he was. "Hmm, perhaps not all is lost after all. Pinky, all we need to do is place a bet with the young mallard here with your earnings. I calculate the odds to be 83 to . . .."

"Oh! Oh!! let me do it, please, Brain? Huh? Huh? Pleeease!" Pinky hopped up and down in his habitual idiotic dance of excitement. The lanky mouse really did want his friend to succeed at taking over the world. In his somewhat simplistic point of view, Pinky figured that since he didn't mind the Brain telling him what to do, no one else would either. In fact, he had great fun with his best friend, Brain. And the world could always use more fun.

Without waiting for a reply from his large-headed companion, the lanky white lab mouse pulled his skate load of money over to the towering green duck. Placing the bet took Pinky longer than the Brain figured it should, even for his intellectually challenged partner. But finally all was set and the two mice continued on their way to await the results of the day's comedic challenge.

Calamity stared in wide-eyed wonder at his invention that actually worked. The young genius was so caught up in the thrill of scientific discovery that he failed to notice when Little Beeper zipped up behind him.

It took only a split second for Beeper to assess the situation. The birdseed, the suspended horizontal racetrack loop, the bunny, and the arc of glue heading slowly, but surely toward his comedy chase partner. It took only another split second for the little red and orange roadrunner to decide what to do about it. While it might be fun to see Calamity all covered in glue, it was HIS breakfast that Babs was interrupting.

"Beep! Beep!!" Little Beeper beeped as loud as he could in Calamity's ear.

As predicted, the small coyote startled, jumped at least six feet in the air and smacked his head into the awning support over the storefront. The vibrations from the impact traveled up the support and rattled the racetrack, throwing the little toy car off the track and smashing it to pieces against the grocery store wall. The distortion warp vanished and time sped up again for Babs. The impact vibrations loosened the supports and the whole awning came crashing down on the bunny and stuck tight to her fur by the glue that she had tried to throw. Babs' head ripped up through the center of the awning, her ears and bows mussed and dripping glue.

A sign from the grocery storefront fluttered down to glue to the tip of one of Babs' long pink ears. [Special Today: Sticky Bun.] The 'Sticky Bun'-ny was not amused.

[Hey this is OUR chase!]

Beeper snorted rudely. The small avian stood in front of the gummy bunny with one wing on his hip and the other holding his sign. The butt-in-ski bunny should just butt-out! That was two chase scenes that the popular doe bunny had ruined. The roadrunner cocked his head at an angle studying the trap that Babs struggled in. It was actually one of Calamity's more straightforward creations. It was simply incredible that the bunny didn't avoid it.

[Rookie.]

Little Beeper stuck his tongue out at the pink bunny ala Professor Road and blew a 'raspberry' at her. With a hop, the little red roadrunner suspended in the air for the moment it took to flutter his red sneakered feet and take off. Hot on the avian's tail, Calamity bolted after Little Beeper, leaving Babs stuck in the remains of his class project.

"Hey come on, Plucky!"

Plucky hastily shoved the bag of money he'd just collected from the mouse into a pocket and ran to catch up with Buster. It was unusual for non-Acme Loo students to place bets, . . . but the small green duck gladly took the rodent's money!

Buster and Plucky approached the 'stuck up' bunny. They had 'watched and learned' all right.

"All right, you can stop watching now." Babs tugged at the store awning draping her like a circus tent, but the Acme Super Glue stuck tight. Frustrated and totally grossed out at the sticky mess her fur was in, Babs shouted, "Get me out of this!"

"Sheesh, Babs, you need to quit fooling around before you jeopardize your comedic title . . . not to mention my winnings!" Plucky scolded as he tugged the 'sticky bun' sign from the doe bunny's ear. The green duck was careful not to get any of the glue on his own feathers, which pretty much limited his usefulness in freeing Babs.

Buster grabbed a double fistful of canvas, and bracing both feet against the curb, pulled back with his whole weight. The blue bunny was puzzled. Everything of Calamity's was working against Babs . . . perfectly. Maybe he should go talk to his mentor, Bugs, about it. And maybe his mentor could advise him on how to get Babs to call off the competition. Once they finally got her unstuck, that is.

Fade into the Looniversity.

On the day of April one, the tomfoolery ran rampant throughout the Looniversity with pies and anvils, pratfalls and pranks, but it soon became obvious which two contestants the race would come down to. Most of the teachers gave up on even pretending to hold class and hid out in the faculty lounge.

Principal Bugs, Vice Principal Yosemite, and Dean Wile E., however, were not in the teacher's lounge. They were in the basement control room of the Looniversity, following their students' antics on the Wile E. Coyote Remote Monitoring System. Back in the early days of his and Roadrunner's chases, Wile had developed the series of video cameras to monitor his attempts and thus learn to eliminate the mistakes that he made. Since coming to the Looniversity to teach, the two Looney chase partners had refined the system. It made their evaluations of their own protégés Calamity and Little Beeper much easier. Numerous side screens showed much of the school in chaos with students performing a variety of pranks and pratfalls on whoever was closest to hand. Balanced water buckets over doors, pies, joy buzzers, and whoopee cushions galore abounded. One side monitor even showed Mary Melody as news anchor for the Looniversity Eye Witless News running a commentary on the hi-jinks of the day. The main screen which took up a good quarter of the wall, however, was focused on Babs Bunny and Calamity Coyote.

A knock sounded, then the door creaked open. Buster stuck his head in, not certain if he should intrude or not. The scene unfolding on the main monitor caught his eye, and almost subconsciously, the blue bunny stepped up to his mentor's side to watch.

The screen showed Babs approaching Montana Max and Elmyra Duff, two of only a handful of the Looniversity's human-esque toon students.

- - - "Sooo, Elmyra, darling!" Babs sidled up to the redhead girl with the skull bow in her hair. After her last failed attempt at coyote bashing which was a simple case of lying in wait behind the student lab door with a mallet, the pink bunny decided that it took a villain to catch a villain. And what better fate for the nerdy canid than to be captured and loved to bits by the school yutz? "How'd you like to get a cute little puppy-head?"

"Ooooh!" the redhead exclaimed, tightening her hold around her 'boyfriend' in her ecstasy. "Cutsy wootsy pink bunny wunny wants ta be a villain, honey."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just go do it. Someone needs to put that geeky genius in his place before he makes fools of us all." Monty pushed Elmyra away from her death grip on him, slapping at her without actually touching her. "And leave me alone."

Babs was taken aback by Elmyra's bit of sing-song nonsense. She wasn't being a villain! Babs brushed it off. Elmyra was a ditz anyway. What did she know?

Elmyra grabbed Babs by her long pink ears and began skipping down the hallway and whacking the pink bunny against the floor, doorways, and lockers on the way to go get the cute little puppy-head.

Monty smirked after the girls retreating down the hallway. This was going better than he planned! - - -

"Uh, excuse me, but maybe I should go . . .." Without taking his startled eyes from the main monitor, Buster backed toward the control room doors. He had to get to Babs and stop her before she made a BIG mistake!

"Eh, hold up there, Buster." Bugs Bunny put a white gloved hand on his pupil's shoulder, stopping the small blue bunny from leaving. As hard as it was to let Babs experiment in new comedy conventions, the tall grey rabbit knew that if Buster tried to intervene, he would only end up as a casualty in the two's battle. "Ya know, you can help or you can hinder, but you can't make Babs' or Calamity's decisions for them . . . and ya won't even be able to help pick up the pieces if you're too caught up in the middle of it all."

"Um, Bugs?" Buster looked up at his hero and mentor. "How come all of Calamity's inventions are working against Babs. I thought that cartoon physics always worked against the villain."

"It does," Bugs intoned. Instead of expounding on the subject, the Looney Tune bunny turned his eyes back to the monitor screens.

"Huh. Two villains and no good guys. Have we ever made a comedy like that before?" Yosemite Sam tugged on his long, red mustaches. The rootin' tootin' bandit toon scowled. Sure it was all part of his own villain-in-training's plan, but if Monty wasn't careful, he'd lose his position as top school baddie.

"I am not sure," Wile E. commented in the precise, cultured tones that he could take on whenever in Bugs Bunny's presence. It was an odd quirk of toon physics. Despite him being a silent toon most of the time, whenever he and and Bugs had co-stared in a cartoon, he was able to speak perfectly well. "I don't really recall any. Even when we have multiple villains, there is almost always an innocent foil at the least that comes out on top."

Bugs was pensive. The more he studied Babs' and Calamity's antics, the more he was convinced that what they really had was a role reversal situation. "Eeh, I don't t'ink dat's we have now either."

- - - Calamity struggled wildly in Elmyra's crushing hug. So intent was he on escaping before she could re-cage him and force feed him carrots again, that the little grey coyote almost missed seeing Babs sneaking up with a huge mallet raised over her head. Performing a desperation swap as he had with Wile E. when falling from the world's tallest building while his mentor recounted his life story, Calamity slipped out of Elmyra's arms and he held the human girl instead.

SMACK!!

Down came Babs' mallet right on the top of Elmyra's head. The girl wobbled a few moments before tipping over backwards with her legs up in the air. Calamity wasted no time, but took off running as if a mac truck was trying to run him down. - - -

Wile E. shook his head, but said nothing. As they watched the comedic interplay, Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote agreed with Bugs. Babs was acting the antagonist's part while Calamity adopted the protagonist's role. Intentions made the villain or the hero more than the methods used. Much to Yosemite's chagrin Calamity was using 'villain techniques' for good, while Babs used comedic license for selfish ends. "Its down right revoltin' if ya ask me!!"

Yosemite stalked toward the door. The vice principal had nothing against new villains, even pink fuzzy ones. But enough was enough! If someone didn't curtail that good for nothing prairie wolf, Calamity would give villains everywhere a 'good' name! "I gots me some business to attend to."

Scroll up to Looniversity Halls.

Much as Calamity previously discovered when dealing with Elymya, both when he agreed to help capture Buster for the overly clingy human and when he was a lifeguard, Babs was finding the redheaded girl more of a challenge to work with than the pink bunny anticipated. After face planting down the stairs, making full body impressions in multiple lockers, and having a rather unfortunate incident involving the high pressure fire hose, Babs finally convinced the moronic menace to chase the small coyote while she laid wait in ambush.

Elmyra skipped blithely along the halls of the Looniversity. With the dumb luck that seemed to favor the girl, she soon spotted the small grey coyote. Calamity instantly fumbled the cherry bomb he was lighting and it fell into a waste paper basket. The coyote took off like a shot, dodging students and April Fools Day traps alike. The bomb went off and a very bedraggled Babs emerged from the waste basket. She shook the soot from her ears and dashed for the next ambush point. While Calamity ran like crazy, Babs kept cutting off his escape routes and trying to block him in janitor closets and corner him in classrooms. Luckily for Calamity, he chased around the school a lot in pursuit of Little Beeper. As such, he knew the place better than just about anyone, and he was hard to corner.

Calamity skidded around a corner then peeked back around it the way he had come. Seeing no immediate sign of his pursuers, he whipped out a stethoscope from his body pocket, tucking in the ear pieces and placing the diaphragm up against the nearest locker. Listening to the tumblers click, the young genius deftly turned the combination lock and soon opened the locker. At times, being a villain had definite advantages. Then the small coyote ducked into the locker, slipping his student card between the latch and the door as he closed it behind him so that he wouldn't trap himself inside.

And none too soon!

"Where are you? my fuzzy wuzzy cuddly little puppy wuppy head!" Elmyra unknowingly stopped right outside a locker where two eyes, wide with fear, blinked through the louvered vent in its door. Her deceptively innocent voice failed to draw out the coyote. "Elmyra just wants to hug you and squeeze you and love you into itty bitty bits!"

A shudder ran down Calamity's spine at the threat, causing the whole locker to shake and a cascade of papers to fall down around the trembling coyote. When Elmyra had taken him in consequence of his failure to deliver Buster to her, it was the most miserable two weeks of his life! He hadn't been able to stand a carrot since! At least he had managed to sabotage her Acme escape proof bunny cage before he escaped, though it earned him an extra two days in her care as her pet 'bunny.' Now at least, anyone who knew the trick, could get out of the cage. But he still had no desire to have Elmyra put her 'squeeze play' on him again!

"Haven't you found him yet?" Babs interrupted the human girl's search just as Elmyra was about to look in a suspicious locker for her quarry. The pink bunny sighed in exasperation, latching onto the redheaded girl's arm and dragging her off to continue the search.

After the despicable duo of Babs and Elmyra were gone, the locker door slowly eased open. Panting in relief at his narrow escape, Calamity collapsed back against the wall between the line of lockers and the door to one of the teacher's offices.

A hand reached out and yanked the small grey coyote into the office.

"Montana Max's been slippin' lately ya know without them fancy-smancy doodads o' yourn." Yosemite Sam tried to get Calamity back into villainy. But especially ever since Little Beeper pointed out how, as the non-instigator, the genius' inventions worked better, the little coyote had given serious consideration to really giving it up.

[ Monty's RICH. ]

[Let him buy from Acme.]

"Aw, come on, you know that Acme products ain't no good." Yosemite practically snarled. He'd never lost a villain before, but Calamity just wasn't responding to his cajoling. "That stuff's trash. At least your inventions stand a halfway chance of working."

Yes, Calamity agreed. Acme products were trash and his own inventions that failed usually had Acme products as main components. But unfortunately, Acme was the only source for some of the more experimental components that he used and the rest he couldn't afford anywhere else. Calamity's love for inventing bordered on an involuntary compulsion. It was driving enough for him that he was even willing to hire out for the money to support his obsession. It was why the grey coyote worked for Montana Max and Elmyra in the first place.

The professor of villainy tried a different tact as the young coyote still seemed resistant to his cajoling. "You wouldn't have ta be a lackey or minion ya know. You'd make a darned good 'Mad Scientist.'"

[Well, I might be a bit annoyed,]

[but I'm not really all that mad.]

Calamity flipped his sign around, showing the back.

[ At least not most of the time. ]

Sam slapped a hand to his face and ran it down his whiskers, elongating his face at the same time. It popped back into shape. "Uhhh, how about 'Evil Scientist' then?"

[ Tempting, . . . ]

[But, how about]

[ NO! ]

"Now see here, ya mangy, flee bitten varmint, I'm crackin' down on ya! From now on, I'm doubling yer villain assignments an' you're going to have ta get a 96% or higher on all yer work to get an A." Having lost all patience with the obstinate canid, The bandit toon resorted to plain, good old fashioned threats. If he couldn't get Calamity through reasoning, he'd get the genius through his homework and grades! Yosemite Sam thrust Calamity out of his office. The vice principal yelled after the prairie wolf. "An' don't you forget it!"

Standing just outside the vice principal's office, Buster cringed at the volume of Yosemite's holler. The poor guy. With opposition like that, no wonder Cal played the villain so often.

Calamity staggered out of the vice principal's office, his ears still ringing from Yosemite's 'little chat.' Buster snagged the coyote's arm and pulled him into the boys room. First his own mentor yesterday, then Yosemite Sam, and now Buster Bunny. Just how many 'chats' was he in for over this whole debacle, anyway? He hadn't even WANTED to accept Babs' challenge!

"Hey, Cal! I just thought we could discuss some, . . . uh . . . football strategy, ya know?" Even though it so-o-o wasn't football season anymore, Buster figured that as the team captain, it was a good excuse to pull Calamity aside. He could quickly turn the talk to morals and maybe encourage the coyote to go straight. "Nothing wrong with getting a good head start on the next season. Heh, heh."

Calamity paused, looking at his team captain for a few moments in silence.

[This isn't about football, is it?]

"Well, actually . . . uh, no. It isn't," Buster admitted. "But Cal, just remember, ya don't have to get lost in your part. You can still be funny without being the bad guy. You can be however and whoever ya want to be . . . no matter what Yosemite or anyone says. You can change from being a villain into being a hero, . . . or even an anti-hero if you prefer! They're cool."

[ So comedy is like energy. ]

[It can't be created or destroyed,]

[ just converted or redirected. ]

"Uh, yeah. Kinda." Buster thought of Babs and how she'd become 'redirected' in her comedic efforts. "Unfortunately."

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A/N Guest appearance from Pinky and the Brain of "Animaniacs," trademarks of Warner Bros. Inc.