URUSEI YATSURA: Behind the Anime Part 3
An exclusive look behind the scenes of Rumiko Takahashi's famous series.
Narrator: It was the television event of the century.after of course the "M*A*S*H" finale, the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas, when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV, when Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot on "Monday Night Football", and the debut of the Energizer Bunny and Budweiser Frogs. The 1983 season of "Urusei Yatsura" ended literally with a bang, when Shutaro Mendo was shot by a mysterious assailant. Throughout that summer, everyone around the world was asking, "Who Shot Mendo?"
Benten: It was crazy. Everyone was placing bets on who did it, myself included. Of course I bet on Shinobu, since everyone thought it was her for Mendo rejecting her. I still have an old "Who Shot Mendo?" T-shirt. (Laughs.) Obviously I can't fit into it anymore! Kami-sama, it's been a while! (Holds up an old shirt.)
Narrator: Obviously the producers didn't want the outcome to leak out, so no one involved with the show was told the true answer, not even the cast. In fact, several different endings were filmed.
Scenes of Mendo being shot by Shinobu, Ataru, Lum, Ryoko, Onsen-mark, Tobimaro, Benten, Sakura, Rumiko, the Space Taxi Driver, one of Kurama's crows, female Ranma, and Mickey Mouse (the latter with a tommy gun).
But finally, on September 21, 1983, the answer was revealed.
Mendo (sitting up in his hospital bed with the entire cast and town of Tomobiki watching): The one who shot me was. (The camera pans toward Ten.) GAAAHHH!!! It was him! Him!
Ten (starting to cry): Noooo!!! It couldn't have been me! I'm a good kid!
Lum (rushing to Ten's side): How can you say that? He's a very good boy! Aren't you, Ten-chan?
Ten (drying his eyes): N-no, Lum-chan. He's right. I'll tell you what happened. (We go to a flashback.) It was a bright, sunny afternoon as I was flying along like I always do, chasing a sparrow. And then the sun went out after Mendo blocked it out! I couldn't see where I was going because the streetlights aren't programmed to come on until 7 PM, and it was only 3 at the time. Well, then I crashed into a wall, and I must've fallen into something.
Ten crashes into the wall of a large building and, knocked out, flutters downward into the loading bin for a large truck. The camera then pans upward to reveal the sign: "Old Mr. Hangover Umeboshi (pickled plum) Plant- Replacing Your Headaches with Bowel Troubles since 1905." Truck driver: Lower away, Matsumura! It may be dark as night, but you know what our motto is: neither rain nor snow nor dead of night will keep us from delivering your pickled plums all right!
Plum chute operator: Actually, our motto is, "replacing your headaches with bowel troubles since 1905", Takasaki. Read the sign.
Truck driver: Just do your job, Matsumura.
The chute operator then pulls a chain and sends an avalanche of pickled plums rolling down into the truck.
Ten (voiceover): I don't know exactly what happened, but when I came to, the pungent scent of pickled plums was all around me. I was obviously too young to be suffocated, so there was only one thing to do; eat my way out. And you know what effect pickled plums have on us Onis.
Shot of the truck moving through the city streets, with a munching sound from the bed. Then Ten bursts out, his cheeks and nose red. Laughing crazily, he starts spinning crazy loops in the air.
Ten: Cuzh thish is (hic) Thriller! Thriller all da (hic) night! Ah, hee hee heeee!!!
The camera then shows everything from Ten blurry point of view, zooming dizzily through the skies, when he flies up to the Moroboshi's car, parked in the city hall parking lot where the meeting is taking place. He then spies Ataru's dad's handgun, sitting carelessly on the car floor after he dropped it. Ten then flies in and picks it up.
Ten: Ooh, a lollipop! (He starts licking the barrel, his clumsy hands turning off the safety and just missing the trigger.) Ahh, the wrapper'sh shtill on. I godda get shomeone ta open it for me (hic).
He then takes the gun and wobbles through the air to find someone. Then he comes across Mendo, just leaving the building.
Ten: Hey, could yew help me open thish?
Mendo: What's that you've got there? I think you'd better drop it. (He grabs the gun barrel and tries to pull it away.) I said drop it!
Ten: Hey, whaddaya tryin' ta do, takin' candy from a baby? Give that back! (He and Mendo grapple for it, but then Ten's finger slips and the gun fires into Mendo's chest.) Ahh! The lollipop ekshploded! Ha ha haaaa! (He then flies off, stinking drunk, back to Ataru's house, randomly setting a few trees on fire enroute.)
Shinobu: Then with your last ounce of strength, you pointed to the sign of a nearby bean dumpling shop called Jarimaro's, and then building next to it, whose address was 10 Shakujidori, and together, of course, the first parts of those two compounds make: "Jariten"!
Lum: Well, I guess it would explain why I had to change your diapers at 4 PM instead of your usual time of 7:30.
Ataru: Yeah man, you could've fertilized all of Hokkaido with those runs you had! Man, talk about a CRAPPY day! Ha haaa!! And boy did your breath stink.BWAAHH!! (Ten shuts him up by breathing fire on him.)
Narrator: Of course, things were just as tense off camera as they were on.
Ten (who now looks like a gangsta rapper, complete with a beanie, baggy clothes, and everything, and wearing a tank top labeled "Kid Rock"): You've probably heard about how I was the lowest-paid member of the cast. I always felt like the kid, the comedy relief, and when Lum caught me drinking and smoking pot with Danny Bonaduce, she made me attend a support group for former child stars and young comic reliefs. I got to meet Butch Patrick, Gary Coleman, that guy who played Cousin Oliver on "The Brady Bunch", the guy who played Sam on "Diff'rent Strokes", those two kids who played the youngest Brady boy and girl.Yee-uh, it was nice telling the therapist about our problems in life, but the part of those evenings I always remember was after our sessions, when we would go out and break car windows, T.P. the world with the help of my flying powers, and buy booze with our fake ID's.
Narrator: But Ten's diminutive size wasn't the only thing keeping his salary down. Throughout the third season, the show's cast ballooned to nearly twenty members, including countless occasional and background characters.
Ryunosuke: I mean.I didn't think I could act that well, and the whole unwilling transvestite thing only goes so far, but my dad told me, if the Dappya monsters could do it, then so could I.
A Dappya monster (in an upper-class English accent, pouring some tea): They paid us in raspberry scones.
Narrator: Meanwhile, Ataru and Lum had secretly been dating and talking seriously about their relationship. But, as mentioned before, they wished to keep their marriage a secret, so the two were officially wed in complete privacy on the secluded floating island of Togenkyo, after Lum's warlord father convinced the island's prince ruler. The island was temporarily moored at a spot in the South Pacific which is the furthest point from land in the world. Nine months later, on November 22, 1983, Lum gave birth to her and Ataru's daughter, whom they named Rumiko, after the woman who had made them famous. However, by the start of the third season, their marriage was already becoming strained by the show's pressures, which included work on the second "Urusei Yatsura" movie, "Beautiful Dreamer".
Sakura: That movie was the most difficult for me. I mean, the plot. I just wondered, what the hell were these people smoking? (She takes a long drag from a cigarette.)
Shinobu: It wasn't just the difficult stunts in the movie. I think I might have mentioned before that all the other girls on the show and I were really jealous of Lum. She got the most fan mail, was the most talked about, and had her picture in the paper the most times! And the only time I ever appeared in any paper was when the National Inquirer ran that headline, "Is Shinobu a lesbian?" And it was on Page Four! Fortunately I won the resulting libel suit.
Narrator: When "Beautiful Dreamer" was released in early 1984, everyone was expecting the excitement and good feelings of "Only You" the previous year. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned.
Gene Siskel (from their TV show): I.I don't know quite what to say. It's beautiful to look at, the plot is intriguing and deep.I think I'm going to have to give this movie a "thumbs up".
Roger Ebert: Ahh, what the heck are you talking about? I couldn't tell what the hell was happening? I mean, what were those people smoking when they came up with this? Plus, it's BORING!!!
Siskel: It's based on an old Japanese folktale, Rog. It's supposed to be a metaphor about the world of dreams and reality, sort of an existentialist thing.
Ebert: Who the hell cares about Japanese folklore and existentialist crap? This HAS to be the dullest, most pretentious thing on screen since "Koyaanisqatsi"! These producers just don't realize that what moviegoers want these days are explosions and superheroes! People who actually get things done instead of talking about why we're here and where we're going! I give it two big, fat thumbs down!
Siskel: Well you know what? I think you're a big, fat poophead! Nyaah!
Ebert: Well you're.stupid! So there!
Siskel: Well you're fat and stupid!
Ebert: Why you.! I'm gonna kick your butt! Yaahh!!! (The two begin slapping each other.)
Narrator: The movie was a big hit in its native Japan and a cult classic in the Western world, but unfortunately it failed to capture the vital American and Western European markets, and turned out to be an international bust.
Ataru: I-I couldn't believe it. It was the first flop for something related to "Urusei Yatsura". But of course, I thought we had hit bottom there. Things could only improve.
Narrator: Unfortunately, they hadn't hit bottom just yet. In April 1984, Ataru traveled to Hawaii to judge a bikini contest for MTV's Spring Break. On the way back, he had a bit too much alcohol and violently sexually assaulted an airline stewardess and several female passengers with his old friend and mentor Happosai, a martial arts teacher. On arrival back at Tokyo Airport, Ataru was arrested and spent the next six months in prison. In the meantime, his role in the TV show and third movie, "Remember My Love", was filled by his good friend Michael J. Fox.
(Scene from the show)
Lum: Darling! Let's go see "Ghostbusters" tonight! I've heard it's really funny, t'cha!
Michael J. Fox as Ataru: Hmm.I wouldn't mind seeing that, but tonight, the acclaimed American economist Milton Friedman and the distinguished American political philosopher William F. Buckley are addressing the Diet (Japanese parliament) on the benefits of supply-side economics and the dangers of overdependency on Keynsian economics and the welfare state.
Lum (sweatdropping): Uhh.maybe I'll ask Shinobu and Benten if they want to come. Y'know, sort of a girl's night out.
Michael J. Fox as Ataru: Okay, why don't you do that. Meanwhile, see if they'd like to read these books; Buckley's God and Man at Yale and the latest issue of the National Review.
Michael J. Fox (today): That obviously didn't work. I mean, who could mistake Alex P. Keaton for Ataru Moroboshi? Not me, brother. Those episodes had some heavy problems.
Narrator: The replacement of the show's male lead made many viewers rather disappointed. Ratings around the world fell even after Ataru returned to the show. The third movie, "Remember My Love" was only a moderate hit in Japan, and a flop abroad. The girl group Darling toured only briefly. But the ultimate sign that the end was near, and the cast could not work well together anymore, came on September 28, 1985, when some of the cast appeared in Fukuoka to perform some skit comedy at a benefit to raise money for the relatives of victims of a disastrous Japan Air Lines jet crash near Tokyo.
Ataru: Hello, Fukuoka! How're you people doing?
Lum: Y'know, some people would say it's inappropriate to have skit comedy at a benefit for air crash victim's families. But I think those people don't know JACK!
She claps her hands, and then comes a POOF! sound followed by streams of jack cards out of Ataru's neck, arms, and pant legs.
Shinobu: Yeah? Well, what's the sound of one hand clapping? (Pauses a beat.) There isn't any, because you can't get gonorrhea by masturbating! (The audience breaks out laughing.)
Lum(whispering angrily in her ear): That wasn't in the script. Darling was supposed to say the next line.
Shinobu (angry): It's called ad-libbing. And besides, the audience seems to like it better than your lousy joke.
Lum: Oh, shut up. I'm the star of this show; the rest of you are supposed to follow MY lead!
Ataru: Hey, I thought I was the star! What gives, you green-haired control freak?
Lum: Shut up, Darling! (Zaps him.) And as for you, I'm glad you get paid the least!
Shinobu: Why you damn space bitch! (Lum and Shinobu start a catfight.)
Mendo: Hey, how come I don't get a line for the next five minutes?
Ataru (sticking his nose in the air): Probably 'cause the public wants more of yours truly.
Mendo (drawing his kendo sword): You come over here and say that. At least I haven't gotten in trouble with the law, you sick-minded boozing pervert!
Ataru: Yeah, probably 'cause your daddy built a legal loophole so you could avoid paying your taxes!
Mendo (shocked): YOU SWORE YOU'D NEVER TELL!!! I'LL KILL YOU, MOROBOSHIIIIIII!!!!!! (He rushes toward Ataru with his sword drawn, but Ataru ducks out of the way just in time and stuffs a pillowcase over Mendo's head.) Waaahh!! It's dark! Get me out of here! It's daaaaaark!
Narrator: And then some of the less billed characters arrived.
Ten: Hey, how come we don't get to appear?
Benten: I care about those plane crash victims too!
Oyuki: You might want to give me a few lines. (Snow flurries start flying around her.)
Ryunosuke's father: Hey c'mon, how about giving my son a few lines.
Ryunosuke: For the last time.I'm NOT YOUR SON!! I'm a GIRL! (She starts whaling on her dad again.)
Narrator: Before a riot could break out, some of the Dappya monsters saved the day by performing a song and dance routine.
Singing Dappyas: We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind/'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well they're. no friends of mine./It's the Safety Dance, Safety Dance.
Ataru (today): Yeah, it was about right there that things started getting out of hand that night.
Narrator: It seemed the dream was over for "Urusei Yatsura". Coming up.how the dream wasn't quite over. When "Behind the Anime" continues.
Narrator: It was the television event of the century.after of course the "M*A*S*H" finale, the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas, when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV, when Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot on "Monday Night Football", and the debut of the Energizer Bunny and Budweiser Frogs. The 1983 season of "Urusei Yatsura" ended literally with a bang, when Shutaro Mendo was shot by a mysterious assailant. Throughout that summer, everyone around the world was asking, "Who Shot Mendo?"
Benten: It was crazy. Everyone was placing bets on who did it, myself included. Of course I bet on Shinobu, since everyone thought it was her for Mendo rejecting her. I still have an old "Who Shot Mendo?" T-shirt. (Laughs.) Obviously I can't fit into it anymore! Kami-sama, it's been a while! (Holds up an old shirt.)
Narrator: Obviously the producers didn't want the outcome to leak out, so no one involved with the show was told the true answer, not even the cast. In fact, several different endings were filmed.
Scenes of Mendo being shot by Shinobu, Ataru, Lum, Ryoko, Onsen-mark, Tobimaro, Benten, Sakura, Rumiko, the Space Taxi Driver, one of Kurama's crows, female Ranma, and Mickey Mouse (the latter with a tommy gun).
But finally, on September 21, 1983, the answer was revealed.
Mendo (sitting up in his hospital bed with the entire cast and town of Tomobiki watching): The one who shot me was. (The camera pans toward Ten.) GAAAHHH!!! It was him! Him!
Ten (starting to cry): Noooo!!! It couldn't have been me! I'm a good kid!
Lum (rushing to Ten's side): How can you say that? He's a very good boy! Aren't you, Ten-chan?
Ten (drying his eyes): N-no, Lum-chan. He's right. I'll tell you what happened. (We go to a flashback.) It was a bright, sunny afternoon as I was flying along like I always do, chasing a sparrow. And then the sun went out after Mendo blocked it out! I couldn't see where I was going because the streetlights aren't programmed to come on until 7 PM, and it was only 3 at the time. Well, then I crashed into a wall, and I must've fallen into something.
Ten crashes into the wall of a large building and, knocked out, flutters downward into the loading bin for a large truck. The camera then pans upward to reveal the sign: "Old Mr. Hangover Umeboshi (pickled plum) Plant- Replacing Your Headaches with Bowel Troubles since 1905." Truck driver: Lower away, Matsumura! It may be dark as night, but you know what our motto is: neither rain nor snow nor dead of night will keep us from delivering your pickled plums all right!
Plum chute operator: Actually, our motto is, "replacing your headaches with bowel troubles since 1905", Takasaki. Read the sign.
Truck driver: Just do your job, Matsumura.
The chute operator then pulls a chain and sends an avalanche of pickled plums rolling down into the truck.
Ten (voiceover): I don't know exactly what happened, but when I came to, the pungent scent of pickled plums was all around me. I was obviously too young to be suffocated, so there was only one thing to do; eat my way out. And you know what effect pickled plums have on us Onis.
Shot of the truck moving through the city streets, with a munching sound from the bed. Then Ten bursts out, his cheeks and nose red. Laughing crazily, he starts spinning crazy loops in the air.
Ten: Cuzh thish is (hic) Thriller! Thriller all da (hic) night! Ah, hee hee heeee!!!
The camera then shows everything from Ten blurry point of view, zooming dizzily through the skies, when he flies up to the Moroboshi's car, parked in the city hall parking lot where the meeting is taking place. He then spies Ataru's dad's handgun, sitting carelessly on the car floor after he dropped it. Ten then flies in and picks it up.
Ten: Ooh, a lollipop! (He starts licking the barrel, his clumsy hands turning off the safety and just missing the trigger.) Ahh, the wrapper'sh shtill on. I godda get shomeone ta open it for me (hic).
He then takes the gun and wobbles through the air to find someone. Then he comes across Mendo, just leaving the building.
Ten: Hey, could yew help me open thish?
Mendo: What's that you've got there? I think you'd better drop it. (He grabs the gun barrel and tries to pull it away.) I said drop it!
Ten: Hey, whaddaya tryin' ta do, takin' candy from a baby? Give that back! (He and Mendo grapple for it, but then Ten's finger slips and the gun fires into Mendo's chest.) Ahh! The lollipop ekshploded! Ha ha haaaa! (He then flies off, stinking drunk, back to Ataru's house, randomly setting a few trees on fire enroute.)
Shinobu: Then with your last ounce of strength, you pointed to the sign of a nearby bean dumpling shop called Jarimaro's, and then building next to it, whose address was 10 Shakujidori, and together, of course, the first parts of those two compounds make: "Jariten"!
Lum: Well, I guess it would explain why I had to change your diapers at 4 PM instead of your usual time of 7:30.
Ataru: Yeah man, you could've fertilized all of Hokkaido with those runs you had! Man, talk about a CRAPPY day! Ha haaa!! And boy did your breath stink.BWAAHH!! (Ten shuts him up by breathing fire on him.)
Narrator: Of course, things were just as tense off camera as they were on.
Ten (who now looks like a gangsta rapper, complete with a beanie, baggy clothes, and everything, and wearing a tank top labeled "Kid Rock"): You've probably heard about how I was the lowest-paid member of the cast. I always felt like the kid, the comedy relief, and when Lum caught me drinking and smoking pot with Danny Bonaduce, she made me attend a support group for former child stars and young comic reliefs. I got to meet Butch Patrick, Gary Coleman, that guy who played Cousin Oliver on "The Brady Bunch", the guy who played Sam on "Diff'rent Strokes", those two kids who played the youngest Brady boy and girl.Yee-uh, it was nice telling the therapist about our problems in life, but the part of those evenings I always remember was after our sessions, when we would go out and break car windows, T.P. the world with the help of my flying powers, and buy booze with our fake ID's.
Narrator: But Ten's diminutive size wasn't the only thing keeping his salary down. Throughout the third season, the show's cast ballooned to nearly twenty members, including countless occasional and background characters.
Ryunosuke: I mean.I didn't think I could act that well, and the whole unwilling transvestite thing only goes so far, but my dad told me, if the Dappya monsters could do it, then so could I.
A Dappya monster (in an upper-class English accent, pouring some tea): They paid us in raspberry scones.
Narrator: Meanwhile, Ataru and Lum had secretly been dating and talking seriously about their relationship. But, as mentioned before, they wished to keep their marriage a secret, so the two were officially wed in complete privacy on the secluded floating island of Togenkyo, after Lum's warlord father convinced the island's prince ruler. The island was temporarily moored at a spot in the South Pacific which is the furthest point from land in the world. Nine months later, on November 22, 1983, Lum gave birth to her and Ataru's daughter, whom they named Rumiko, after the woman who had made them famous. However, by the start of the third season, their marriage was already becoming strained by the show's pressures, which included work on the second "Urusei Yatsura" movie, "Beautiful Dreamer".
Sakura: That movie was the most difficult for me. I mean, the plot. I just wondered, what the hell were these people smoking? (She takes a long drag from a cigarette.)
Shinobu: It wasn't just the difficult stunts in the movie. I think I might have mentioned before that all the other girls on the show and I were really jealous of Lum. She got the most fan mail, was the most talked about, and had her picture in the paper the most times! And the only time I ever appeared in any paper was when the National Inquirer ran that headline, "Is Shinobu a lesbian?" And it was on Page Four! Fortunately I won the resulting libel suit.
Narrator: When "Beautiful Dreamer" was released in early 1984, everyone was expecting the excitement and good feelings of "Only You" the previous year. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned.
Gene Siskel (from their TV show): I.I don't know quite what to say. It's beautiful to look at, the plot is intriguing and deep.I think I'm going to have to give this movie a "thumbs up".
Roger Ebert: Ahh, what the heck are you talking about? I couldn't tell what the hell was happening? I mean, what were those people smoking when they came up with this? Plus, it's BORING!!!
Siskel: It's based on an old Japanese folktale, Rog. It's supposed to be a metaphor about the world of dreams and reality, sort of an existentialist thing.
Ebert: Who the hell cares about Japanese folklore and existentialist crap? This HAS to be the dullest, most pretentious thing on screen since "Koyaanisqatsi"! These producers just don't realize that what moviegoers want these days are explosions and superheroes! People who actually get things done instead of talking about why we're here and where we're going! I give it two big, fat thumbs down!
Siskel: Well you know what? I think you're a big, fat poophead! Nyaah!
Ebert: Well you're.stupid! So there!
Siskel: Well you're fat and stupid!
Ebert: Why you.! I'm gonna kick your butt! Yaahh!!! (The two begin slapping each other.)
Narrator: The movie was a big hit in its native Japan and a cult classic in the Western world, but unfortunately it failed to capture the vital American and Western European markets, and turned out to be an international bust.
Ataru: I-I couldn't believe it. It was the first flop for something related to "Urusei Yatsura". But of course, I thought we had hit bottom there. Things could only improve.
Narrator: Unfortunately, they hadn't hit bottom just yet. In April 1984, Ataru traveled to Hawaii to judge a bikini contest for MTV's Spring Break. On the way back, he had a bit too much alcohol and violently sexually assaulted an airline stewardess and several female passengers with his old friend and mentor Happosai, a martial arts teacher. On arrival back at Tokyo Airport, Ataru was arrested and spent the next six months in prison. In the meantime, his role in the TV show and third movie, "Remember My Love", was filled by his good friend Michael J. Fox.
(Scene from the show)
Lum: Darling! Let's go see "Ghostbusters" tonight! I've heard it's really funny, t'cha!
Michael J. Fox as Ataru: Hmm.I wouldn't mind seeing that, but tonight, the acclaimed American economist Milton Friedman and the distinguished American political philosopher William F. Buckley are addressing the Diet (Japanese parliament) on the benefits of supply-side economics and the dangers of overdependency on Keynsian economics and the welfare state.
Lum (sweatdropping): Uhh.maybe I'll ask Shinobu and Benten if they want to come. Y'know, sort of a girl's night out.
Michael J. Fox as Ataru: Okay, why don't you do that. Meanwhile, see if they'd like to read these books; Buckley's God and Man at Yale and the latest issue of the National Review.
Michael J. Fox (today): That obviously didn't work. I mean, who could mistake Alex P. Keaton for Ataru Moroboshi? Not me, brother. Those episodes had some heavy problems.
Narrator: The replacement of the show's male lead made many viewers rather disappointed. Ratings around the world fell even after Ataru returned to the show. The third movie, "Remember My Love" was only a moderate hit in Japan, and a flop abroad. The girl group Darling toured only briefly. But the ultimate sign that the end was near, and the cast could not work well together anymore, came on September 28, 1985, when some of the cast appeared in Fukuoka to perform some skit comedy at a benefit to raise money for the relatives of victims of a disastrous Japan Air Lines jet crash near Tokyo.
Ataru: Hello, Fukuoka! How're you people doing?
Lum: Y'know, some people would say it's inappropriate to have skit comedy at a benefit for air crash victim's families. But I think those people don't know JACK!
She claps her hands, and then comes a POOF! sound followed by streams of jack cards out of Ataru's neck, arms, and pant legs.
Shinobu: Yeah? Well, what's the sound of one hand clapping? (Pauses a beat.) There isn't any, because you can't get gonorrhea by masturbating! (The audience breaks out laughing.)
Lum(whispering angrily in her ear): That wasn't in the script. Darling was supposed to say the next line.
Shinobu (angry): It's called ad-libbing. And besides, the audience seems to like it better than your lousy joke.
Lum: Oh, shut up. I'm the star of this show; the rest of you are supposed to follow MY lead!
Ataru: Hey, I thought I was the star! What gives, you green-haired control freak?
Lum: Shut up, Darling! (Zaps him.) And as for you, I'm glad you get paid the least!
Shinobu: Why you damn space bitch! (Lum and Shinobu start a catfight.)
Mendo: Hey, how come I don't get a line for the next five minutes?
Ataru (sticking his nose in the air): Probably 'cause the public wants more of yours truly.
Mendo (drawing his kendo sword): You come over here and say that. At least I haven't gotten in trouble with the law, you sick-minded boozing pervert!
Ataru: Yeah, probably 'cause your daddy built a legal loophole so you could avoid paying your taxes!
Mendo (shocked): YOU SWORE YOU'D NEVER TELL!!! I'LL KILL YOU, MOROBOSHIIIIIII!!!!!! (He rushes toward Ataru with his sword drawn, but Ataru ducks out of the way just in time and stuffs a pillowcase over Mendo's head.) Waaahh!! It's dark! Get me out of here! It's daaaaaark!
Narrator: And then some of the less billed characters arrived.
Ten: Hey, how come we don't get to appear?
Benten: I care about those plane crash victims too!
Oyuki: You might want to give me a few lines. (Snow flurries start flying around her.)
Ryunosuke's father: Hey c'mon, how about giving my son a few lines.
Ryunosuke: For the last time.I'm NOT YOUR SON!! I'm a GIRL! (She starts whaling on her dad again.)
Narrator: Before a riot could break out, some of the Dappya monsters saved the day by performing a song and dance routine.
Singing Dappyas: We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind/'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance, well they're. no friends of mine./It's the Safety Dance, Safety Dance.
Ataru (today): Yeah, it was about right there that things started getting out of hand that night.
Narrator: It seemed the dream was over for "Urusei Yatsura". Coming up.how the dream wasn't quite over. When "Behind the Anime" continues.