Last time…
Everyone is assembled except for Skippy, Slappy and the Warners. However, there's a problem: The teenager has discovered that Slappy is dead andSkippy is now around 30 years old. Is all is as it seems though? Is it a case of mistaken identity? Is Slappy really dead? Find out in:
The Warners That Time Forgot
Episode 9: That's Not All Folks!
When we last left our teenage protagonist, he was running out of a cemetery with a comical trail of smoke behind him, after being shell-shocked at his surprising discovery.
Still at the cemetery, the 30-year-old Skippy just looked at the teenager running away with a weird look on his face. Suddenly, from underneath the grave, "Hey! What's with all the racket? I'm supposed to be takin' a dirt nap under here. Ahhh, people these days have no respect…" suddenly, the area around the gravestone opens like a mechanically operated door, to reveal Slappy Squirrel, alive and well, emerging from a large room that seemed to have all of the comforts of home, "…back when I was your age, if you started yelling in a cemetery, you'd be beaten with a stick... or have an anvil dropped on you, whatever pleased me more."
"I think she thought you were dead and that I'm your nephew Skippy," the older Skippy replied to Slappy
"Good," she said, "Any publicity is good publicity if I wanna make this pilot work. Come on Slippy, let's go back to my place and have some of my famous walnut figdough surprise, it works as brain food you know, "
Yes you read right, it's not Skippy, but another nephew Slippy. How's that for a plot twist? And we have the inside information.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Burbank at an Internet café our hero is furiously typing into Google to confirm what he saw. The first link that appeared seemed to confirm his fears, a YouTube link from an official TV network channel page about Slappy's death. A deep voice you usually hear on movie trailers speaks on the video.
"Slappy Squirrel, a living legend of cartoons… or so she was before her untimely death. No one knows how old she was, although we first saw her in this cartoon (a clip from that cartoon starts playing), Locomotive Slappy, 1926, directed by Willy Washington."
The cartoon clip plays for about 1 minute; it looks oddly familiar to a certain early Disney sound cartoon featuring a certain animated mouse in it.
"Join us on ABC at 8pm eastern for a special send-off show, featuring some very special guest appearances, as we pay tribute to the comical genius that is, Slappy Squirrel."
"So she really is gone," the teenager said to himself, sadly. Suddenly, it seemed that a large chunk of his plan flew out of the window. "I must continue my hunt however," he said adamantly. "Slappy may be gone, but Skippy's still here… even if he is not a kid anymore. And I'm not going to go this far to not meet Yakko, Wakko and Dot!"
He then stands up and starts shouting at himself as dramatic music plays in the background, which makes everyone in the Internet Café stare at him. "But first, I will pay tribute to Slappy Squirrel, pay my respects, for the genius she was, and the genius she will always will be!"
The Internet café is silent, and then one by one, people start to awkwardly clap. It didn't turn into applause, just an awkward clapping moment.
Meanwhile, in an apartment in a dirty end of Burbank, three old villains were sitting on the couch watching a soap opera (tragic, isn't it?), Sid the Squid, Beany the Brain-Dead Bison and Walter Wolf. During the commercial break an ad appears for the Slappy Squirrel tribute show.
"Geez! Who know Slappy Squirrel would kick the can before we did?" Sid the Squid remarked.
"Gah? Who's Slappy Squirrel? I think we go to bridge club together," Beany dumbly said. Walter hit him with his walking stick. "She's the one who kept us from the spotlight for almost 80 years!" Walter explained to Beany.
"This cheeses me off more then when they run out of tapioca during bingo night. I should have been the one to finish Slappy Squirrel!" Walter shouted.
"Well, what are you going to do?" Sid said as a rhetorical question.
But Walter, in his mood swing, actually answered that question, "I tell what I'm going to do. I'm going to make sure Slappy Squirrel gets the worst send-off she could possibly imagine! I bet you she'd be rolling in her grave if I reveal the clips I have planned to replace the real clips with! And you two clouts are going to help me."
"Sure, it will give me something more interesting to do then what we do usually on a Saturday night." Sid said.
"And what's that?" Beany asked.
Sid hands him a backpack full of tapes. "Nothing. Come on," he says, annoyed.
Saturday night, and the setting for the special was the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, the traditional home and workplace for Slappy Squirrel, both originally and during the production of Animaniacs.
As the studio audience rolled in, outside the studio arrived Walter, Sid and Beany, with Beany carrying a backpack full of incriminating and embarrassing tapes of Slappy Squirrel.
Walter started giving orders, mostly focused on Beany the Cerebrally-Challenged Bison, "OK, Beany, you will boost me and Sid up to the window, so we can sneak in undetected while you stand outside and guard, got it?"
"Got it" Beany said. (For once he understood something, although really, the job of standing guard was just a useless job for Beany to do so he wouldn't stuff up the plan)
"OK, boost us up," Walter said to Beany, and Beany, using his bison strength to lift them up. The window was just within reach of Walter's grip, but it did require some stretching.
Now, we'll leave that daring feat of acrobatics for a minute, to focus on the teenager, who secured tickets to the tribute show. Walking into the studio lot he noticed the three old villains performing their little balancing act, to try and get backstage. "Hmmm. They obviously are up to no good, as usual. They won't succeed, so I should just accelerate that failure."
Walter is stretching for the window, when suddenly he is lowered a bit. "What are you doing you bumbling buffoon?" Walter shouts to Beany. But Beany is occupied in another conversation as the teenager hands him a backpack. "I think you dropped this Beany," the teenager says to him.
"Ohhh. Thank you," as Beany stops holding Walter and Sid. Of course, Walter and Sid fall to the ground.
"Don't mention it," the teenager says as he grins and runs off quickly.
"What was that all about Beany?" Sid asked angry.
"I dropped my backpack, and the nice kid gave it to me."
"But Beany, you're still wearing the backpack you took with you for out plan!" Walter, also angry, explains to Beany.
"Oh! Well then what's in here?" Beany asks. He opens the bag and then shouts happily, "Oh look! He gave us a 4th of July present!" That 4th of July present was really an assortment of fireworks and good old-fashioned dynamite.
Just before the dynamite blew up, Walter and Sid turned to Beany and Walter shouted, "Beany you idiot! If I were 40 years younger I'd…" and then a large boom was heard and the villains went flying off in the night sky, to a location far, far away.
Meanwhile, somewhere on the main stage was a trap door, which only a few insiders knew about. This trap door opened up to reveal a ladder, which leads down to a tunnel; and at the end of the tunnel, is Slippy, Skippy and Slappy.
"It's almost time aunt Slappy, we're going to be late," Skippy said.
"Calm down Skippy, if I'm late, it will only build the dramatic tension," Slappy replied.
"Are you sure this is the best way to make a comeback?" Slippy asked nervously.
"No. But it's certainly the most dramatic."
"But what about the fans, they'll hate you for lying to them?" Skippy asked slightly worried.
"Ah, you two are asking too many questions, like this is one of my comedy skits or something."
"It is Aunt Slappy, don't you see the camera?" Skippy told Slappy.
The three squirrels stare blankly into the camera. "I guess your right," Slappy said and then continued preparing for the show.
"Aren't you going to tell them your plan?" Slippy asked.
"Why should I? They may know I'm not dead, but the number 1 rule of comedy is 'never reveal your punch lines,'" Slappy explains to the two of them.
And so the cliffhanger is set. Walter, Sid and Beany may have been taken care of but the show is just about to start, and no one, not even I know exactly what kind of madness will unfold.
"Live from the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, it's the Slappy Squirrel Memorial Special!" The teenager takes his seat, Barbra Walters takes the microphone, and Slappy, Skippy and Slippy wait underneath the tunnel for their dramatic entrance.
"For as long as we can remember the cartoons of Slappy Squirrel have been making us laugh, cry, and sometimes fearful of whether we will be the next one to get dynamite down our pants," the audience chuckles.
"Slappy, will always be remembered as a legend of cartoon animation, who heraled a new age of cartoon animation, and with the help of another group of equally screwy cartoon characters, collaborated on one of the finest TV animation shows of the 90s, Animaniacs. But, despite her many enemies, she also has a lot of well-wishers" (A giant TV screen drops which starts to play clips from celebrities)
(The caption reads: Bugs Bunny): "(Chews on carrot), Slappy had a very different kind of comedy. It was a kind of screwball comedy where the rules and boundries of animation were broken. Tex had a way of doing that with the stars he directed…"
(Steven Spielberg on the set of Lincoln): "Slappy wasn't difficult to work with at all. As long you had multiple sticks of dynamite, she did whatever we told her."
The interviewer off-screen asked: "What were some of the special things you enjoyed about working with her on Animaniacs?"
"Well, not many people know this, but she was the inspiration for the our Macarena parody. One day she just burst into my office screaming, 'What is this stupid modern music, it's making me sicker then those patients on your medical show!' and that gave me the idea. We hadn't parodied a song yet and so the Macadamia Nut was created."
Interviewer: "So, were they real sticks of dynamite she as using?"
"Oh yes. It was a highly dangerous craft she was trying to pull off, but she was one of the special few that could"
After these interviews, "And now let's welcome our first guests, Slappy's protégé's, live via TV link from inside the water tower here at Warner Bros., the Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko and Dot.
The crowd applauded, none more so then the teenager who then said to us, "It's surprising to see that they're letting them do new material, even in this context."
Yes, the Warner siblings, so tantalisingly close to where the teenager was, confirming what he thought, the Warners were still in the water tower.
And straight away, the Warners showed they lost none of their sprit, "HELLO NURSE!" Yakko yelled to the audience and they all waved wildly.
Barbra asked the first question, "How did Slappy help you establish your own comedy careers?"
Dot chimed in with the answer in her 'I'm so cute' way, "Slappy was our inspiration, those Warner/Buddy cartoons were her idea"
"Yeah, she hated Buddy," Wakko added
Yakko explained the rest, "So she said to us, 'can you newbies get Buddy out of the business for me?' And, we kinda liked Buddy ("We loved Buddy," Wakko butted in), thank you Wakko, but we also saw this as our big break, and so she gave us a mallet each and auditioned to be Buddy's new partners,"
Meanwhile, in a flat far away, a mystery person in a chair (OK, it's Buddy) throws his remote at the TV, "Grrr, so it was Slappy who ruined my career, I'd get her back if she wasn't dead!" Then, suddenly, Slappy appeared and handed him a present, "Thankfully I'm not, and here's a gift of forgiveness for you." She grinned and then ran off.
"Oh, how nice," Buddy opened the present, which turned out to be a bomb that blew up in Buddy's face.
Barbra moved on to the next item, "In 1945 you finanally got to work with Slappy on a cartoon crossover, Camera Slappy, directed by George Roe, we have a clip here." The Warners look into the camera and quickly grab popcorn.
The clip plays of a cartoon that is quite different from the normal Slappy cartoon. Slappy is a director for the first time but she's directing Yakko, Wakko and Dot. A battle of wits ensures.
After the clip plays but before Barbra can continue, the Warners lean close to the camera and say, "Wanna know a secret?"
Barbra hesitates but response, "OK," but the Warners say nothing, "Well, what's the secret?"
Suddenly, out of the trapdoor, Slappy and Skippy climb up onto the stage to the absolute shock of everyone, including the teenager and Barbra Walters.
"S-S-Slappy's alive! And Skippy is still… young!? What in the name of Pinky and the Brain is going on here!"
"I fooled ya, that's what! I'm making a comedy comeback, but the only way some of you yahoos!"
"Yeah! We fooled you good." Skippy seems really satisfied and starts to laugh hard.
"OK, Skippy, it wasn't that funny."
"But I remember seeing Skippy all grown up. How do you explain that?" Barbra asked.
"Oh, that was my other nephew, Slippy," Slappy turns to the trapdoor, "Come on out Slippy, the nice people want to talk to you," and the slowly gathering applause, Slippy comes out of the trapdoor to the laughter of the crowd realising the similarities between Slippy and a grown up version of Skippy.
"Now that's… cruel and unusual comedy," Slappy says as the picture fades out.
But then the teenager pops out on the black background, "But wait, that wasn't really comedy?" Slappy appears, "What do you expect when the fan writers think of these stupid death scripts? It's been done many times. That a good enough answer for you?"
"Well yes, but one more question, how come Skippy sounds young again, I remember in the prologue, he had a voice of a teenager."
Skippy appears alongside, "Do you know how much the studio paid us when we got cancelled? Enough to have a cartoon voice replacement!"
The teenager gives a weird look to the audience.
NEXT TIME: The loose ends are tied up from the end of this story, plus the chapter you've all been waiting for!