"Lights, Camera, Villains"



As the sun began heading towards the horizon, the four agents began planning their door to door investigation. The plan was to interview the other tenants of the motel and see if they had any information regarding the strange events that had occurred in the town of Nowhere. The agents divided the motel up into four sections. At 6:00 PM, they changed into their agent uniforms (like the 'Men in Black'...shades and all.) Fifteen minutes later, they set out.

Agent Gammon headed down the stairs toward Section 1. He found three rooms vacant before he came across the fourth one. He heard an accordion playing inside. Gammon knocked on the door and the accordion stopped. A moment later, the door opened. You can imagine the look on Gammon's face when he saw a two-and-a-half foot tall duck staring up at him. He was wearing a toupee and a moustache.

"Yes? What do you want?" asked the duck in a French accent.

Still trying to get over the shock, Gammon shakily said, "Excuse me, um, Mr...."

"Le Quack," said the duck. "Now what do you want?"

Gammon cleared his throat and spoke in a more professional tone. "I, uh, would like to ask you a few questions. You see I'm from the government, and..."

SLAM! Le Quack shut the door in his face.

Gammon leaned into the window. "I just want to ask you a few questions!"

Le Quack peered at him through the glass. "Go away. I do not trust you American agent peoples." With that, Le Quack drew the curtains on him.

Gammon stepped back and thought to himself. He didn't know whether this Le Quack guy was avoiding him because he hated government people....or because he was hiding something. A funny feeling told him it was the latter. But it didn't appear as though Le Quack was going to let him in, no matter how hard he tried. So Gammon gave up and decided to see if any other tenants in his section would talk.

Gammon searched the entire section and found nothing. He wasn't surprised. This tiny desert town didn't have an interstate running through it, so business was bound to be slow. But just before he turned to go back to his room, Agent Gammon noticed a door at the very end of the hall. Gammon knocked on it and a furry creature answered it. Gammon was no doubt surprised that a dog-sized gerbil wearing a plaid shirt was taking residence in that room.

"Hey there!" said the gerbil in a Southern accent. "Doc Gerbil's the name! What can I do for ya?"

"Hi," said Agent Gammon. He thought it was wise not to say that he was from the government this time. "I want to ask you a few questions for a.....survey. Can I come in?"

"Well, sure now! Hey, you're not from the FDA, are you?"

Gammon could see why Doc Gerbil asked that. Inside the suite was a large collection of pharmaceutical equipment. Pill boxes, medications, and syringes were scattered throughout the room.

"Now I know what yer thinkin', and I gotta tell you that I only sell these products. I don't use them myself." Gammon was about to say something, but Doc quickly cut him off. "And yes, I do have a license." Doc Gerbil held up his license for Gammon to inspect. Gammon saw that it was authentic.

"Now then," continued Doc Gerbil as he sat in a chair. "What are these here questions you wanted to ask me?"

"Right," said Gammon said, and he sat in a chair opposite Doc Gerbil. Gammon took a little notepad and a pencil from his pocket. "Now, um, Mr. Gerbil, do you live here?"

"No. I actually live several miles down the road. In an underground home."

Gammon wrote the info down in his notepad. "Do you recall any strange activities that have occurred in this town, since you've been here?"

"Well, no," said Doc Gerbil. "Not that I recall."

"Have you always been a medical retailer?"

"Huh?" asked Doc Gerbil. "Oh! You mean my nearby merchandise. Well, no, actually I was a vacuum cleaner salesman for a while. But, y'know, going back to that strange occurrence question, I suddenly remember something."

"Could you elaborate?" asked Gammon, excited to see that he was getting somewhere.

Doc Gerbil paused. He had figured out by now that Gammon's outfit implied that he worked for a serious corporation. Maybe even the government! Therefore, Doc Gerbil didn't want to tell Gammon about the illegal experiments he had previously conducted on Courage's masters. So he said, "Well, this little pink dog that lives on the outskirts of this here town snuck into my house once and, uh, disappeared as soon as he had left. Very odd, if you ask me." Doc Gerbil decided to leave out the part about the boat chase and the waterfall. (Just like in the episode, remember?)

"I see," said Gammon. "So you used to be a vacuum cleaner salesman?"

"Yeah, and I also sold cosmetics for.....Hey, what kind of a survey is this?"

Gammon saw that his cover was being blown, so he quickly said, "That's irrelevant. Thank you for your time." And he dashed out the door.

"Now wait just a minute," declared Doc Gerbil, as he started to chase after Gammon. "What...?"

Doc Gerbil looked out into the hallway. Nobody was there. Doc Gerbil scratched his head with puzzlement.

Gammon had leaped down the stairs and into a corridor. So...a little pink dog. So far that was the only piece of strange information Gammon had received. That and the fact that he had just been talking to a duck and a gerbil! Gammon realized that he had just completed his section and seeing nothing else to do, he decided to go into Section 2 and see how Agent Barsby was doing.



Speaking of Barsby, he was deep in a conversation with the Queen of the Black Puddle. She was the only tenant in Barsby's section. Barsby had knocked on the door and the Queen had answered. She was the most attractive, yet purple, woman Barsby had ever seen. They asked questions for about fifteen minutes. The Queen was acting suspiciously generous and kind throughout the interview.

"Now, tell me again what happened," said Barsby.

The Queen spoke in a very seductive voice. "Well, like I said, I live in an underwater home. One day, when I had an old man over at my house, a pink dog with a scuba tank broke into my house and tried to kidnap the old man. I was asleep at the time, but I awoke just in time to stop him." Of course, none of that was really true. She actually lured the old man (Eustace, of course) to her underwater home to devour him. Courage had actually swum down there to save him. The Queen's story was false, but Barsby believed it.

"Hmmm..." he hummed to himself. "How many pink dogs are in this town?"

"Just one that I know of," said the Queen. She got up from her chair and opened up a drawer. She began searching for a bottle of perfume.

Barsby was just about to ask her another question when he caught sight of a picture standing on a table next to one of the beds. The picture showed a horrible purple beast that was showing its fangs and reaching for the camera with hideous claws. Barsby was surprised to see that the eyes of this beast were the exact shade of purple as the Queen! (The picture is of the Queen in her "true form" but Barsby doesn't know that.)

As Barsby stood staring at the picture, the Queen found her perfume bottle. It didn't contain perfume, however. It contained a love potion. Her plan was to spray the love potion in Barsby's face, create a puddle of water on the floor, and lure Barsby down to her home so she could eat him.

Barsby looked away from the picture as the Queen hid the perfume bottle behind her back.

"What's that a picture of?" asked Barsby, who pointed to the portrait.

The Queen was just about to bring her hand out from behind her back to spray Barsby, when suddenly, Agent Gammon appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Barsby!" he shouted.

The Queen threw the bottle into the drawer and shut it.

"Yeah?" asked Barsby, slightly annoyed.

"Are you done with your investigation yet?"

Barsby sighed. For once, he decided not to bring up another argument with Gammon. "Yeah, I'm done," he said. He walked out of the room. "Thanks for your time, ma'am," Barsby called out to the tenant. He then closed the door.

The Queen of the Black Puddle snapped her finger in agitation. "Why did that other agent have to come at that exact moment?" she asked herself.

Outside in the hallway, Gammon and Barsby began arguing once again. "Why did you have to waltz in like that for?" asked Barsby to Gammon.

"I'm just looking after your safety. That's all," answered Gammon.

"Well, I'll look after my own safety if you don't mind," argued Barsby.

"Look, you were assigned to bring any unusual information about this town to me for cataloging, right?"

"Right," said Barsby reluctantly. He wished the Boss had given that job to HIM.

"Well, what have you found out?"

"Well, the purplish lady was just telling me about how some strange pink dog was running around this town."

"Interesting," said Gammon, whose tone of voice had changed. "One of my interviewees also spoke about a pink dog."

"Y'think they could be related?" asked Barsby.

"I think we both know the answer to that one," said Gammon.

Suddenly, a shriek of fright was heard from down the hall.

"D.M.!" cried Gammon and Barsby.



The two agents raced down the corridor, turned a corner, and ran head-on into Agent Darkest Moon. They fell on their rears and took a moment to catch their breaths.

"D.M.! What's wrong?" asked Barsby.

Agent D.M. looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her eyes were wide and her breath was coming out in short bursts. A bang of hair fell over her forehead.

"Feet!" shouted D.M.

Gammon and Barsby looked at each other. "Feet?"

"Big feet!" shouted D.M.

Gammon glared at her. "Let me guess," he said sarcastically. "You saw Bigfoot, right?"

"No.......at least, I don't think I did," quivered D.M.

"What do you mean?" asked Barsby.

D.M. gulped. "I saw a large, hairy figure at the other end of the hall. I tried following him but he was too fast. I took out my camera, went around the cover, and he just vanished!"

Gammon rolled his eyes after hearing that unbelievable story. Barsby was more lenient, though. "And then what?" he asked.

"Well, I went back down the hall and I came across the only resident in my section. He was..."

"What? What???" asked Barsby.

"He was a foot! A big, purple, fungus-covered foot!"

"D.M..." grumbled Gammon.

"And he had faces! A single face was on each toe!"

"D.M...."

"And they could talk! The big toe had an 'Al Capone' accent and..."

"D.M.!!!" shouted Gammon.

D.M. looked at Gammon with large, frightened eyes. Instead of yelling at her, Gammon pulled Barsby off to the side.

"She's talking crazy," whispered Gammon. "We need to get her out of here. She's not well enough to carry out this case."

"Hey," said Barsby. "In case you haven't noticed, her story is no more outlandish than what's already happened to us. That lady I interviewed is...different, somehow."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Gammon.

"I mean, all the tenants of this motel are all very unusual. Who did you see in your section?"

Gammon looked down at his feet. "A duck....and a gerbil. They could talk and..."

"Don't you see what's going on?" Barsby now spoke loud enough so that D.M. could hear. "This motel is full of freaks! I say, we go find Agent R and discuss this with him!"

"What if he doesn't believe us?" asked Gammon.

Barsby looked at D.M., then at Gammon. "I have a feeling that he's interviewing some strange people too. C'mon."

The three agents walked down the hall towards the lobby. Neither of them saw the security camera on the ceiling that was watching their every move.



Behind the front desk, Katz was watching a TV monitor. It was showing the three agents walking down the hall. The camera didn't have a microphone, so Katz didn't know what they were saying. But he knew something weird was going on.

Agent Jonathan R entered the lobby. He didn't see any tenants in his section. Therefore, he decided to have a little chat with Katz.

"Mr. Katz?" asked Agent R as he entered the lobby.

Katz quickly turned the TV off and looked Agent R in the eye. "Yes. What is it?"

"I need to ask you a few questions."

Katz was immediately distrustful of this person in uniform. He looked like some sort of secret agent or something. Katz began hatching a plan so he find out more about this guy.

"Very well," said Katz. "But first, I need to see some identification. Your signature in the check-in book was too hard to read."

Agent R sighed. He took a fat wallet out of his pocket and gave it to Katz. Katz was amazed as he flipped through the numerous ID cards in the agent's wallet. Agents are required to carry fake ID cards with them so they can impose as other people. Katz was just about to hand the wallet back to Agent R when he suddenly caught sight of a large card poking out of a secret back pocket. Katz had a hunch that it was the man's real ID card.

Thinking quickly, Katz said, "I'm afraid I'll need my reading glasses. Could you hand me them? They're over by that table." Katz pointed to a table behind Agent R's back.

As Agent R went to get the glasses, Katz's eyes widened as he read the card. This man actually was a secret government agent! Katz put the card back before Agent R returned with the glasses.

"Here you go," said Agent R, and he handed Katz the glasses.

Katz put them on and began reading one of the fake ID cards. At the same time, the other three agents entered the lobby.

"Ahh, yes. Now I see it. This name does indeed match the one in the book." With that, Katz handed the wallet back to Agent R. The other three agents looked very nervous by now. Gammon began tugging on Agent R's sleeve.

"What is it?" asked Agent R, in an annoyed voice.

"There's something strange going on here," Gammon whispered.

Barsby leaned on the front desk and looked right at Katz. "What kind of a motel are you running here?"

"Yeah," interrupted D.M. "And what do you know about a little pink dog around these parts?"

Katz looked shocked upon hearing D.M.'s question.

Agent R was puzzled. "What are you three talking about?"

Katz spoke up first. "Maybe it would be best if you four discussed this your rooms."

"I think that's a good idea," said Agent R. "C'mon, guys." He headed out of the lobby.

Agents Gammon, Barsby, and D.M. were stunned. How could Agent R not see that this motel was not a regular motel? Didn't he interview anyone else besides Katz? Well, they'd have plenty of time to give him the details once they were in their rooms.

As Katz watched the four agents walk off, he headed toward the telephone. The government card had proved his suspicions that those four people were government agents. Worse, they knew that the place was full of bad guys like him. Worst of all, they had heard about Courage, or at least, "a pink dog in the area". If they teamed up with that dog, the villains could be disposed of very easily.

Katz began dialing a number that led to one of the rooms. "I think it's time for me and the tenants to have a little meeting," said Katz to himself.

The sun had just disappeared below the horizon.