MID SEASON BLUES

The following Friday night brought the Warner Bros. All-Stars to Epcot Stadium. If you'd ask Mickey Mouse what team he'd want to beat the most, he would tell you that WB would top the list, even more than Hanna-Barbera. However, yet another major distraction occurred during the week of preparations for this game. A distraught male college student at Virginia Tech University shot and killed a man and a woman at a dorm on that campus, stopped long enough to mail a hate-filled manifesto to NBC News, then walked into a classroom building and resumed his shooting spree. Scores of people were shot in that building and 30 more were killed before the student turned the gun on himself. The massacre stunned the nation and the world, bringing back memories of Columbine. Beginning with the Disney-Warner game, every contest that weekend was preceded by a moment of silence and other forms of remembrances for the Virginia Tech victims.

The game itself was bittersweet, the Virginia Tech tragedy not withstanding. Kim Possible had the best game of her career with 234 yards receiving and two touchdowns. Disney jumped to an early 17-10 lead, and it appeared there was a blowout in the making. Only someone forgot to tell Warner Bros. WB reeled off 41 second-quarter points to lead 51-20 at the half. Daffy Duck was the key to the WB attack, rushing for over 170 yards. They also stopped the Disney ground game, holding Buzz Lightyear to just 85 yards in 29 attempts. WB appeared to have this game in the bag. Only this time, someone forgot to tell Disney. The "Mouse" team rallied, headlined by two fumbles by WB free safety Buster Bunny on two straight kickoff returns, which let Disney close to within nine points. However it was too little too late, as WB came away with the victory 57-45. At the end of the game, Bugs Bunny was overheard to say with a sheepish grin on his face, "Ain't I a stinker?"

Mickey might have gone off after such a heart breaking loss. Maybe his heart wasn't in it, given the physically draining play, and the shock resulting from the Virginia Tech tragedy. Given the amazing comeback effort, Mickey expressed disappointment about not coming away with a victory, but was calm in his summarization of the game. He praised Kim Possible for her efforts, and even apologized for that screen pass to her that resulted in a five-yard loss. (WB's 41 point scoring spree occurred after that play.) The defense gave a good effort, he felt, but tonight, it wasn't enough. "We had a golden opportunity here tonight, and we just simply kicked it away," he told his players. "That happens sometimes. Let's learn from our mistakes, put the game behind us, and move on from there."

Mickey was worried about the next opponent, and with good reason. The next game was against She-Ra and the Masters of Power at their place. She-Ra's team had completely fallen apart since first playing Disney in Week 2. It appeared that the Masters of Powers couldn't even beat a team made up completely of fairies, wooden puppets, and naked mole rats. Mickey was afraid that his team wouldn't play with the same intensity against a "lesser" opponent, thus allowing She-Ra & Company to pull an upset. (And there were some in and around Richmond who thought She-Ra couldn't even punch herself out of a paper bag, the way her team was playing!) To prevent this, Mickey ran his team into the ground during practices that week. Every tough drill, every strenuous conditioning exercise were part of the practice plan. Mickey threw players out of practice right and left. He was going to get a victory at Richmond if it was the last thing he did. "We lost to a stinker rabbit last week, " Mickey told his team. "I'll be damned if we lose to a helpless damsel! You all better think about that."

As things turned out, Mickey didn't lose to a helpless damsel, since She-Ra had been benched by her coaches, an event that caused raised eyebrows nationwide. Instead, he lost to her brother 52-16, which raised even more eyebrows. The Masters of Power completely dominated the game, led by He-Man who passed for 234 yards and two touchdowns. The Masters of Power limited Mickey Mouse to only 209 yards passing, 9 interceptions and no touchdowns. Kim had a good game, with 8 catches, which resulted in 108 yards, but no touchdowns. Minnie had 67 yards receiving, but didn't have any touchdowns either. Buzz Lightyear rushed for 119 yards on 33 carries, but even he failed to set foot in the end zone.

Mickey was beside himself at the post-game meeting. "I would have bet the farm that this would happen," he began his post-game comments. He then restated his threat to replace everyone with the casts of Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy. There was no holding back this time; he launched into a profanity-laced fit of screaming and yelling. Everyone was guilty of one thing or another. He was so angry at one point he kicked a garbage can across the room in frustration. His final words seemed to echo like thunder: "If we lose to another helpless damsel, I might as well quit and never come back." Those words genuinely scared everyone.

Everyone dreaded what was to come. Monday morning, Mickey worked his team into the ground, but he wasn't wild and screaming like he was following Saturday's game. He was like: "We have now lost two straight, and there's not a thing we can do about it. All we can do is play better, and concentrate on getting ourselves into the playoffs."

The next day, Kim Possible found herself in the center of another distracting incident. Maybe it was the resulting hangover from Saturday's stunning upset. Maybe it was the way the moon and stars were aligned. Whatever the cause, like the incidents before, it began innocently enough, but resulted in the teen finding herself on the hot seat. During a break in the Tuesday morning practice, Goofy was regaling Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Donald's nephews, Hewey, Dewey, and Louie about a short cartoon Goofy did in the late 1940's, "How to Play Football." Goofy was dropping back as if to catch a pass in his own "goofy" way, when he accidentally bumped Shego. "Sorry," Goofy apologized.

"Why don't you watch where you're going, you clumsy oaf?" Shego snorted.

"Hey, I said I was sorry," Goofy responded. "Jeez!"

Shego thought about zapping Goofy right then and there. She even set her hands to glowing (Uh-oh!), but thought better of it. (Whew!) "Why waste my energy zapping a dingus like that," she thought. Then she noticed Donald rolling on the ground in laughter. "What's so funny, ducky?" she demanded.

Donald Duck took one look at Shego and said in between laughing spasms, "You."

"Is that so?" Shego snarled. "Well, by all means, laugh it up, funny ducky!" and zapped Donald with her green energy bolt. Donald let out a cry and fell to the turf motionless.

"Donald!" Daisy shrieked. She run over to where Donald had fallen, glared at Shego, and spat: "Shego, you bitch!"

"I am, ain't I," Shego said. "One of my many virtues, I assure you."

Kim was nearby, working with Aladdin's girlfriend Jasmine on the proper blocking of a pass play when she heard the commotion, and watched in horror as Shego zapped Donald. Kim leaped high, did a mid-air summersault, and landed on her feet between Daisy and Shego, who was preparing to zap the female duck.

"Shego, are you nuts?" Kim exclaimed. "Why did you do that for?"

"Well, if it isn't 'goody two-shoes' Kimmie," Shego said. "Standing up for the rights of lowly mallards now, are we?"

"I stand up to protect all beings from the likes of you," Kim replied. "Why can't you pick on someone your own size? If you want to fight, Shego, you can fight me!"

"You got it, Kimmie!" Shego snarled.

"Bring it on!" Kim shot back, and the two began trading punches, kicks, and began wrestling with each other. The two would roll around on the ground fighting, then one would break away, the other giving chase. Kim raced for a nearby goal post and leaped onto the crossbar. Shego chopped it down with her glowing hand, and Kim jumped off it as it fell in such a way to avoid injuring herself. The two continued chasing each other up and down the field. Drakken was watching this whole commotion with glee, chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Go, Shego, go!" At one point, Shego called out to her adversary, "Here! Duff Killigan wanted you to have this!" and threw a golf ball at Kim's feet. Not just any golf ball, mind you, but one of Duff's exploding golf balls. Kim was able to evade the explosion, as well as Shego's energy blasts. Moments later, Jasmine, seeing her friend in trouble, raced over to help. Shego saw the Disney Princess coming, and without breaking stride, zapped Jasmine, and she fell to the ground.

"Now I'm really mad, Shego!" Kim called after her adversary. "You'd better run and hide, 'cause I'm so gonna kick your ass!"

"I'd love to see you try!" Shego taunted. The two wrestled on the ground yet again, punching and kicking each other, before Kim escaped, Shego in hot pursuit. As she ran downfield, she noticed Mulan standing near the goal line. She was gesturing with her hands like, "Lead her this way, Kim. I'll try to get her off your back for you." Kim did just that. She raced past Mulan and leaped onto that goal post's crossbar, while Mulan confronted Shego. Kim, watching from atop the crossbar was thinking, "Try to get her back turned towards me, Mulan." And when Mulan did manage to get Shego's back facing Kim, the redhead jumped off the crossbar, and caught Shego in the back of the head with a "flying mare". Shego collapsed to the ground, moaning. Everyone was congratulating Kim for being able to stand up to Shego like that. By now Donald Duck had recovered from Shego's blast, and so had Jasmine. Mickey now came racing up to where Shego had fallen. He took one look at the moaning woman, and said simply, "Get her out of here."

After things settled down, Mickey had all the involved parties in his office, telling their side of what had happened. After getting their stories, he had Shego tell her version of how the incident went down. Shego told Mickey that it was Kim Possible that had initiated the aggression, and should be suspended because of that!

"Kimmie got together with Goofy and Donald and planned this," Shego began. "Kimmie hadn't had any missions in a while, and was itching for a fight, so she arranged for Goofy to bump me on purpose and for Donald to laugh at me, knowing I'd zap one of them. Then Kimmie would intervene, and provoke me into fighting her. And when she did intervene, she was taunting me with 'Why don't you fight me, Shego!' and 'I'm gonna kick your ass!' In fact, it was her who delivered the first blow. Then she went after me. I was merely defending myself, Mickey."

"Well, then, why did you zap Jasmine for?" Mickey asked.

"Jasmine and Mulan were in on it, too," Shego continued. "Kimmie knew she couldn't take me on by herself, so she arranged to have her friends gang up on me and the three of them were going to collectively kick my ass. I didn't count on Kimmie jumping off that goal post and kicking me in the head. I should have seen that coming."

Mickey wasn't buying Shego's story. "Yeah, right," he said. "From what I've seen and heard here today, I believe that Goofy did bump you, but it was purely an accident. I did tell Donald that he needs to watch what he says and does in front of you, but you still had absolutely no excuse for zapping him. As for Kim going after you, I can find no fault in what she did. There's no telling how many more players you would have zapped if you continued to run amok like that." Mickey paused for a moment, then continued, "Look, you're not going to get kicked off this team or suspended. But you are going to get a reprimand, and placed on 'probationary status' for the rest of the season. You will also have to pay for the ruined goal post as well as the repairs to the field. And if we have another incident with you, you will be gone, which means you'd go straight back to prison." He paused again then added, "Now, are we going to have anymore trouble from you?"

"No, sir," Shego answered."

"Good," Mickey said. "Dismissed." As Shego left the office, he sighed and muttered to himself: "If I don't have enough problems already!"

That Friday night brought a return engagement of the Five's A Mob Legends to Epcot Stadium. Again, the same "Battle of the Redheads" poster appeared in and around Orlando. Once again, Mickey named Kim honorary captain of the team, and had her call the pre-game coin toss. But Friday afternoon, Kim had a surprise visitor in her unit, Daphne Blake. Again Kim teased Daphne with, "I'm going to kick your butt!" But the response Kim received surprised even her.

"You probably will," Daphne said with a resigned sigh. "And I am going to tell you something here in complete and absolute confidence; I'm thinking of retiring after this season."

"You?" Kim exclaimed, astonished. "What's the sitch?"

"I simply don't want to go out on that field anymore," Daphne replied. "After Verona pummeled me this past winter, my performance hasn't been what it was before. I'm not getting any younger, you know. My bones ache, especially when it rains. I go out there, and by the third quarter, I become extremely fatigued. I am literally running on fumes. I just want to curl up in a corner and sleep for eighteen hours, and yet I have to go out there and play another fifteen minutes of football. The doctors say that the collapsed lung I suffered when Verona beat me to within an inch of my life reduced my lung capacity, resulting in the fatigue. Every time we get the ball late in the game, I'm like, 'I have to go out there and bang again?' Then I heard about what happened to Amy Wong, and I'm like, 'That could have been me!' I don't know Kim, I don't know how much longer I can bring myself to do this."

"You know, Kimberly, I envy you," Daphne continued. "You see, my creators, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and Iwao Tokamoto made me a 'damsel in distress' in the beginning. I was just like Penelope Pitstop, only with red hair. I was always falling through trap doors. I was getting kidnapped all the time. My friends were always calling me 'Danger Prone Daphne'. Once, when we were chasing a prehistoric caveman who had supposedly came 'back to life', I leaned over a railing too far, causing me and my friends to fall into a net intended to trap the caveman. That same year in San Francisco, some Chinese thugs captured me after I bought an ancient mask in a curio shop, stuffed me in the trunk of a car, and took me to an ancient temple to lure my friends into a trap. Another time, a 'steamin' demon' took me prisoner and stuffed me into a piano in old Seattle. I could tell you many more stories like that. For the life of me, I could never understand why they made me that way.

"You, Kim, are everything I ever wanted to be. Your creators, Bob Schooley, Mark McCorkle, and Steve Loter endowed you with very special traits. You're an ordinary girl, but an ordinary girl that can do just about everything. You're a straight-A student. You're head cheerleader at your school. You save the world on a regular basis. You're endowed with special athletic and acrobatic abilities that get you out of every scrape you've ever been in. Your friend, Wade, feeds you valuable information that helps you defeat your foes. You have a sidekick and friend that cares very much about you, and has since become your boyfriend. I'm an only child, you know. I live in the lap of luxury, but I'm really very poor because I've never had any brothers or sisters to talk to. You have two very bright younger brothers to keep you company."

"You mean the 'tweebs'?" Kim said, somewhat surprised. "Pulleeasseee!"

"I wouldn't 'diss' those tweebs too much," Daphne told her friend. "Those tweebs of yours literally took a shell of a car and rebuilt it into that beautiful ride you now have. It'd probably blow the doors off my Corvette."

"Okay, I'll give you that one," Kim replied. "I am grateful about that. So you're thinking about retiring from the League. What do you plan to do then?"

Daphne gave a weak smile, then said: "As you know, my team, the Mob Legends will be dissolved after this season. They said I could return to the Hanna-Barbera All-Stars next year, but with my numbers, I'd likely be a backup quarterback to Pebbles Flintstone. Now I consider Pebbles a friend, but I don't think I could play second fiddle to her. I like the power and control that being a starting quarterback brings. I figure I could join the coaching staff instead, or perhaps take a front office job or something." Daphne paused for a beat then continued: "Now let me give you some advice here. You're eighteen years old and have a long career ahead of you. But you need to keep in the back of your head that Disney is a dynamic organization. They're creating new characters and franchises all the time. Sooner or later, they're going to create the 'next big thing', and you'll be relegated to second or third string and cease to get any more meaningful playing time. Or one day, you'll be on a mission and Shego will get the drop on you. Or during a game, you'll be waiting for a pass, and some free safety is going to come along and snap your knees like peanut brittle, and that will be that. What I'm saying here, Kimberly Ann Possible, is that you need to live the moment. Enjoy the spotlight while you're basking in it. Because tomorrow will come a lot sooner than you think. And when it does, that calendar page will flip over and say, 'That's it. You can't be a first string player anymore.'"

"Oh, I will keep that in mind," Kim answered. "Look, it's almost time for pre-game meal. You want to come and share some spaghetti, pancakes, and scrambled eggs with me?"

"They feed you spaghetti and pancakes for pre-game?" Daphne said. "Yuck! No thanks! We get steak and eggs for our pre-game meal!"

The second match up between the Disney All-Stars and the Five's a Mob Legends was as different from the first one as day is from night. The two teams played each other tight until late in the third quarter when disaster struck once again. Ariel tried a 54-yard field goal attempt, which would have brought Disney to within one. The attempt was straight and true until at the last instant, it veered and hit the right upright. Then Mickey Mouse had a touchdown pass intercepted and returned for a 98-yard Legends touchdown. Kim had 130 receiving yards in that game (no touchdowns), but most of those yards came late in the game when it was too late to reverse the tide. Disney fell to defeat 44-16.

Mickey had little to say after the game. "I don't understand you people," he said in a resigned tone. "Why you can beat teams like Star Trek and the Smurfs and then lay an egg against teams you could beat easily is totally beyond my ability to comprehend anything."

It should be pointed out here that Mickey Mouse is not the head coach of the Disney All-Stars, though he appears to be one. Jiminy Cricket has that honor. But Mickey is Jiminy's mouthpiece, and is thus the de-facto coach of the team. And given the fact that Disney failed to make the playoffs in 2006, and is in danger of being left out of the playoffs again in 2007 has made both Jiminy and Mickey very concerned. Jiminy Cricket is fond of singing "When You Wish Upon A Star", but without victories, even wishing upon all the stars in the universe wasn't going to save this season. Jiminy even told Mickey that he was thinking of retiring after the season ends. Jiminy's statement truly scared Mickey.

Mickey went back to his office and did some soul-searching. It appears that Disney can be divided into two camps, each its own little fiefdom onto itself. On one hand there was the classic Disney characters that appeared in the classic Disney short subjects and features; Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Snow White, Cinderella, etc. On the other were characters that have appeared more recently, like those from recent Disney movies, Pixar, and the Disney Channel; Ariel, Jasmine, Buzz Lightyear, Kim Possible, Shego, Jack Sparrow, etc. On the surface, both camps seemed to function well as one cohesive unit, but there was a bit of rivalry between the two. The flare-up between Shego and Goofy, which grew to involve first Donald Duck and then Kim Possible, was a sign of this. There was a danger that this rivalry could become cracks, then a rift that could tear the entire team apart.

Mickey, while he was at it, decided to do some background checking on Shego, just out of curiosity. When they were little kids, Shego and her four brothers were sitting in their tree house when a multi-colored comet fell from the sky. Rather than killing the children outright, the comet gave these kids super powers, and thus became super-heroes, calling themselves "Team Go". Shego received the comet's green powers, which gave her the ability to use her powers to cut through any material known to man. Yet, there also was a flaw; the more Shego fought, the more evil she became, until she was evil all the time. She then teamed up with the bumbling mad scientist, Dr. Drakken, who enlisted her help in his wild schemes of world domination. Mickey then remembered something Kim had told him before the season began; Team Go had met up with a villain known as Electronique who zapped the heroes with a device called the "attitudinator", which causes a 180 degree reversal of one's attitude. Team Go had become evil, and Shego had become "good". While good, she had taken a job teaching at Middleton High School, and had even dated Steve Barkin! To make a long story short, after about two weeks, they had another encounter with Electronique, and everyone reverted back to "normal". Very interesting, Mickey thought. Then he turned his mind back to the task at hand. This team, especially the offense had got to start playing better, and soon, or this will turn into another lost season, whether he had an attitudinator or not!