(Updated 2-8-05)
"That's ridiculous...and yet strangely logical," said Bill. "Let's go!"
Within years they had walked over to the MAD magazine headquarters, a collection of tall skyscrapers that defied the laws of physics and good taste.
Chief walked up to closest building, knocking on the mahogany (not really, but it sounded so much fancier than vaguely red-looking metal) double-doors. A window in the center rolled up, with two beady eyes staring out.
A reedy voice growled out, "Passwoid?"
"Huh? You work at E-Dawg's lair!" said Chief angrily.
"Well, I was fired. I was too illogical."
"Why, you made careless mistakes all the time?"
"No, I pronounced 'password' as 'passwoid' and I pronounced everything else normally. And I'm only a pair of eyes that stare of a little hole in the door, and then when you open the door I disappear."
"Wow, you are a weirdo," mused Chief.
"Hey, you're the one who understands words like 'ambiguous' and 'mused.' Come on, who says mused?"
"You just said muse."
"Oh yeah. By, the way, muse is the passwoid. Come on in."
The doors opened and all they all walked in. There was a long hallway with doors along each side. There was a young bellhop with sandy brown hair and sandy brown eyes standing near the door in a red uniform, and he quickly walked over to the group.
"Good even', governors. Who would ya like ta see?"
" Albert E. Neuman, but we can get him ourselves," said Charlotte. She breathed deeply and yoga-ly, and started speaking in a calming monotone voice. "Paging Doctor Neuman, paging Doctor Neuman. Please report to the front door."
"One, it's King Alfred E. Newman… I think…and two, ya need a speaker ta page people," corrected the bellhop. "Besides, King Alfred is busy. In the meantime, I'll give ya a bit of a tour of the MAD buildings. Ma name is Dude."
So off they went, going to through doors and the occasional window. The first door Dude showed them was a drawing room, where artists drew the comics for MAD. Charlotte walked over to one of the artists and asked, "What are you drawing? Spy vs. Spy?"
"Actually," said the artist forlornly, "I'm drawing the contents of my tortured soul."
"Woah," said Charlotte. "Why are you doing that? Shouldn't you go to therapy or something?"
"I am. First I wanted a black and white cat for a pet...and I got a Malibu Barbie instead." The artist shuddered. "It wasn't even black and white, it was white and black."
"No! Oh, this is depressing, I'm leaving." Charlotte edged away from the artist and bumped into another person, a girl around 17 in a red spandex suit with pink shades covering her eyes and bleached blonde hair reaching to her waist.
"Who are you?" Charlotte asked.
"I'm a demon from hell sent to devour your souls. My name is Lulu. I was full though, so I'm just waiting until Friday."
"Oh, cool! Hey, Lulu, I got a friend name Bill—he has this show—and this British guy named Chief. We're going around being spies and defeating Arnold Hard-To-Spellanegger and this evil guy named E-dawg. Feel like helping?"
"Well, I don't think the Apocalypse is until February...why not?" Lulu shrugged and smiled a dazzling smile to white it seemed blinding. She and a rapidly blinking Charlotte walked back the rest of the gang. Chief and Dude were having a serious conversation, and Bill was busy dropping stuff on the ground to see what sound they made (as you can see, he was running out of experiments to put on his show).
"Kids today!" Chief was clucking. "If you have a noun for a name like Chief or Dude, they think your parents were drunk or something! I mean, personally, Dude is way more normal than Harry!"
"Well, Dude isn't actually ma name," replied Dude, "It's actually Man. But ma friend always say either, 'Hey Dude!' or 'What's up, Man?' So that part isn't really so insulting to me. But these days, kids can't even spell mitochondria, conscience, or anti-disestablishment-presbyterianism!" They both clucked cluckily until they say Charlotte.
"Oh look, it's the demon chick! Feeling too cold, Lu?"
"Not really, hell froze over a while ago. I'm not sure why."
"Well, in that case, let's go."
They all walked over to the second room, where reporters reported stuff for the MAD magazine writers to make fun of. There was a panel of judges bathed in shadow and a reporter stood on a high platform, listing the current events.
"On Monday, the Science Institute of Yugoslavia announced that shadow is a liq—ooh, cake!" The reporter dashed off to the staff party next door.
"Next!" said one of the judges, sounding suspiciously like Simon Cowell. It was Simon Cowell, and the rest of the American Idol judges, plus an old lady who had just wandered in there. "Kyle Smith, come here."
A twenty-something year old with a blonde mullet and a pierced lip came up.
"Dude," he began in a slow, fazed-out voice. "Not you," he said to Dude, "Just, like...dude. I mean, judges-dude! Oh my god you won't BELIEVE what I saw! There was, like, a bird. And, man, I'm not kidding, the bird, I was running towards it dude, and, like, it went up in the air and started flying away! I mean it! The bird, it, like, flew dude! Yeah man! It was totally awesome." He grinned.
"That's the worst piece of news I've ever heard. Birds always fly!" complimented Simon.
"That was wonderfully told, honey-sweety-pie-cheeks-poo, but birds do fly a lot," said Paula sweetly. "The fools," she thought to herself, "They have no idea that my plans will come to fruition by February, and idiots like him will clean my toe-nails..."
"Dawg," said Randy, "The bird flying was cool and all, but you got to say it differently. Not 'dude' and all sounding like your high, how about saying...hmm...oh, I dunno..."
"Dawg?" suggested Kyle.
"Yes! Dawg! That's brilliant! Now go away! Next! Chad Meinstein."
"I like cake," croaked the old lady. Every shouted in the room (even Ashton Kutcher. Bet you thought I just forgot about him, didn't you?) shouted, "Word!"
Another man walked up, with black hair and the largest green eyes Bill had ever seen.
"I saw the aliens! They came and messed up Britney Spears' hair!"
"Whacko," growled Simon.
"Woah, no way!" gasped Paula. Britney Spears was the key to her plan! With out her, how would she control the South?
"Dawg, you're crazy," said Randy.
"I like cake," croaked the old woman.
A muscled and bald bouncer-type guy came and lead Chad away while he screamed, "They did! The aliens did!"
"Next," growled Simon, "Sydney Meinstein, our gossip columnist."
A girl with a shock of curly red hair around her head and large green eyes like Chads' came up, chittering excitedly.
"Guess what, you won't believe this, J.lo and Ben Affleck are a couple! They might even make a movie together! And Justin and Britney broke up!"
"We know that already," sighed Simon, "Got anything new?"
"Oh...well...um..."Sydney paused. "Aliens attacked! They messed up Britney Spears' hair!"
"I like cake," croaked the old woman, and Sydney was carted away by the muscled bouncer man again.
"Anyone else?" asked Paula sweetly. She felt like killing a stranger.
"Hey," said Bill, walking up to the platform, "Did you know the this guy named E-Dawg has a Doomsday Device, Arnold Schwarzenegger has some sort of evil plot, and that there's cake right over there?"
"I like cake," croaked the old woman, but by then she was the only one left because the rest had shouted, "Ooh, cake!" and ran off to a staff party in the next room across the hall.
The room was a big auditorium, with balloons and streamers everywhere and more importantly, a HUGE chocolate cake taking up half of the table in the middle of the room. Everyone was chatting and elevator music was playing. Bill got a slice of cake and then saw Alfred E. Newman and walked over to him.
"Hey! King Alfred! I'm Bill Nye."
"Ah yes, the guy with the TV show. Don't worry—we already made a parody about you several years ago. You're name in MAD is now Shmill Guy, since we're supposed to make fun of everyone's names."
Shmill Guy shrugged. "I don't care. My friends and I have a problem. See, goddess Newbia wants a 'plot' and 'characterization' and she even wants me to be in character! A scientist! So, I think, we've got to convince her that craziness is funny. But, we have no-one to make fun of!"
"How about Jessica Simpson?" suggested Alfred.
"Too easy."
"Hey, wait a second, isn't saying 'too easy' making fun of Jessica Simpson?"
"I guess..."
"Well, if not making fun of her, then a cameo to spice things up."
"Oh no you don't!" growled a deep voice. A creature that looked like the Hulk only a bright shade of pink and with a blonde Mohawk (I do not make these things up, people, I just write down what happens!) had suddenly appeared.
"Ah! Copyright Monster™!" shouted Dude. "We own the cake! I swear!"
"Yeah, but you don't own Bill Nye, or Jessica Simpson, or Alfred E. Newman! You can't even spell his name right! You've never once worshipped the God of Copy right laws by groveling in your authors notes about you not owning any of this, you blasphemous fiend!"
"You mean," asked Charlotte, "that there are actually people who are stupid enough to think Goddess Newbia© owns Bill Nye? Or that Bill Nye bothers to carefully scan the Internet to see if anyone is using him without copyright?"
"No, but that doesn't matter, I'm bored and I want some violence! Bow before my mighty might!"
Nervously they all started bowing, and the Copyright Monster (his name was TM) laughed and then said, "Wait, but I have some good news!"
"You just saved a bunch of money on your car insurance by switching to Gieco?" asked Chief. Every blinked and stared.
"No...but I can hear you now!"
"Good."
"Anyway, the good news is, Newbia has decided that the 'appearing and telling everyone what to do' cameo joke is old, and she knows you'll be upset by not being able to see her anymore." TM listened to the cricket silence. "But anyway, to make up for it, she's decided to put a disclaimer next chapter, and now I must leave. Good bye." With that, TM disappeared in a burst of ®s, ©s, and ™s.