Total Drama Endless

...

We open with a spotlight shining on a hallway. The photos of the casts of previous Total Drama seasons line the wall. We touch on each as an unknown voice begins to speak.

"Islands. Travels. Races. These are staples of the classic era of the franchise known only as Total Drama. Over the years many a laugh, a smile and a "Oh my god they really did that" was had from this globally beloved series and its mischievous host: One Christopher Mclean."

We linger on a picture of the aforementioned man himself Chris Mclean in his natural element; torturing a cast of teenagers. Wild glee abounds in his eyes. Captured in time forever by the camera.

"Funny, charming, sadistic. Chris may have been the bane of his contestant's existence, but let me tell you, did the audience love him for it. For many Chris was the heart of the Total Drama. His signature lack of regard for safety propelling the series into the media juggernaut we know it as today."

The hall of pictures ends leading into a shot of what looks like the set of a talk show. Someone sits at a desk chair turned away from us.

"…But as the years went by, and Chris grew older, the show grew beyond the man who created it. Total Drama became an untameable beast too fearsome to be harnessed by a lone aging Canadian. And so, it was decided that a new Chris would have to rise to the ranks of hosting the most popular reality show in the world, Ideally…"

The man in the chair swivels to face the camera. He's of European decent with a rectangular face, high forehead and wispy orange hair done up like a rooster's comb on the top of his head.

"Me!" Exclaims the Man. "Conan Christopher O'Brien. Notable hoster of things such as late-night television as well as god of things such as… late night television. I don't know if you we're expecting someone different. Maybe someone a little more… logical. But let me just say that's the wrong mindset to have because this season will be anything but logical."

Our new host gets out of his chair and starts pacing the set. In his suit and tie he's more formally dressed than his predecessor was.

"See thing is, I didn't just want to replace Chris Mclean, I wanted to top him. Now of course that's easier said than done. This show's come so far since that first season on Wawanakwa. By season six they already had the entire island be an artificial island with robots! Season Six that was! To say nothing of what came after.

How does one lowly talk show host take that to the next level? Well as it turns out, I was just the man for the job.

You see America, I've been keeping a secret from you. You may have thought me all this time as an unfunny, untalented man used by the networks to fill time slots on that dying behemoth everybody in my day called cable TV.

And you'd be… well… mostly right about that. But there's one thing I've never shared about my personal life. This!"

He presses a button on his watch. The set's backdrop collapses revealing a massive spaceship parked in a hanger behind him, twice the length of jetliner. The ship's smooth, sleek, alien and curiously enough, seems to have a cockpit shaped like a bulbous, scarlet, pair of wax lips.

"Yeah!" Conan boasts. "That's right, I've got a starship, and she Frenches like no tomorrow! And that's not the half of it! My sexy beast of a ship does more than just French, or even travel the stars. My blue steel sugar honey's got warp drive capabilities, and enough of them to clear this whole universe." He looks offstage. "But you already all about that don't you Jeremy?"

From stage right what appears to be an oozing mass of veiny bubble-gum gurgles something unintelligible.

Conan gestures to the creature. "My assistant Jeremy. Good kid, but as you'd imagine he leaves a hell of a mess."

He turns his attention back to the audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, loyal viewing audience and children of all ages. To honor this titan of a show, we're talking Total Drama on the road! And pitting a whopping twenty-seven contestants from across fiction against all the multiverse can throw at them! Welcome to Total. Drama. Endless!"

He holds a confident pose for a moment before dropping it and looking at off stage eagerly.

"How was that take? good?"

Jeremy can be heard gurgling again.

"Hush Jeremy, you're a great mic operator. And you're doing it without arms and everything! Be proud of yourself for once sugar bear."

The Jeremy figure oozes again, gurgling something in apparent distress.

"The set was what? What? Jeremy you know I love ya, but I struggle with your accent sometimes."

Jeremy let's out a distress noise.

Conan somehow manages to piece together whatever Jeremy's trying to say. "Right! Yes! You better go take care of that quickly. I'll catch up in a bit, I've got a few more things to go over with the folks a home before we get this season started in earnest."

Jeremy oozes away leaving Conan to his lonesome. He turns to address the camera again.

"Now, if you're anything like me, I imagine you've probably got some questions buzzing around in your mind right now. Conan, what's with Jeremy? What's with the Wax Lip Ship? If Chris is getting old why replace him with someone older? Why replace him at all? Must him seem all very... what's the word? Random! Yeah… Well not to fear. We're going to run over a couple oddities of this Fanfic here. Yes Fanfic. We're cracking open that precious fourth wall for this intro and only this intro! The name of game's immersion, so don't expect to see it broken again after this.

Also, naturally, everything in this chapter from this paragraph on is non diegetic.

First off, little backstory. This tale actually started life as a comic script, before morphing into more of a general fic. It also wasn't originally intended to published online. Rather it was meant to be a fun little tale shared between a couple of lifelong friends, and hosted by a character from an earlier story they played when In their childhood. That time were storytelling was bereft of theme and copyright law so at anytime you could say… give a comedian you liked a funny spaceship and have him be a recruiting character. Which of course is the meta version of why I've got this baby."

He pats the landing gear of his ship affectionally.

"Good times." He says smiling nostalgically. "That little piece of backyard folklore was called Unusual Nickelodeon. I bring it up because we'll be going there in a later chapter. Other than that, there's not a lot of original content, and everything that is will be played pretty straight forward. Up to and including me. Provided you count dimensional traveler Conan O'Brien as an original character. Which leads me to my next topic."

Conan steps away from the ship and walks over to a poster of his face.

"So. Let's address the elephant in the room, or rather the talk show host. Some people find it a little unethical that writers occasionally treat celebrities like they do fictional characters. People writing stories about Ann Frank being rescued by Goku. Or Justin Bieber being turned into a werewolf that pines after an author stand in. Both of those example are real by the way. Some people find that stuff creepy and it's pretty understandable.

So here in the first chapter let's make something abundantly clear; I am not intended to be a one to one stand in for the real, actual human being you share the Earth with Conan Christopher O'Brien.

First of all, that guy's way better looking than I am, and doesn't own a starship.

He also has a family, real world nuances, and a complex personal life that will not be a part of my character. No sir. Celebrities like everyone else are entitled to their private life and the author's not going to pretend they know the real Conan intimately just because they've seen some of his content. What I am is a caricature of the real Conan's public persona, and a rather silly and lighthearted take on one at that. Same thing applies to the other half dozen odd real people featuring in this story.

Oh, and lastly one more dire bit of business. There are some characters (two in particular) that just naturally include a lot of blue language in their dialogue. It was to the extent that keeping it out would feel out of character, so they've been allowed to keep their sailor mouths, with the caveat that it's censored. Because fourth wall or not when it come to FCC guidelines on my production, I take that **** seriously.

Now final bit of house cleaning then we're good to rock. For our upload schedule, you guys will have a new episode of Total Drama Endless every Wednesday for ten weeks. After that we're going on a short hiatus, which is pretty much how things will go from then on out. Dozen or so solid weeks of posting, followed by preplanned hiatus built around story breaks."

Conan returns to his ship. Jeremy sludges over back into frame with a champagne glass on his head. Conan takes it from him, then toasts the camera.

"This is going to be a lot of fun. Here's to the wildest Total Drama yet. I hope you all enjoy. Now let's get show on the road. Tune in next week, where we meet our colourful cast of contestants for the first time."