All right, I've put it off long enough. Heeeeere's Neji! Oh yeah, Gai, Lee, and TenTen are in here somewhere too…

Additional note: Monday Sucks is not mine.

The Shinobi's Guide to Television
By Kaori

"What are you guys doing here?" a genuinely surprised Lee asked.

"We should be asking you that." Remarked Naruto. "Last I checked this was our mission, Fuzzy Brows."

Teams 7, 8, and 10 arrived at Studio One that morning to find Team Gai already there.

"Hokage-sama in her infinite wisdom asked my youthful students and I to provide assistance!" boomed Gai. "It seems she feels you do not have the spirit needed to complete this particular part of the assignment!"

"Eh?" blinked Kurenai. "Do you know what's going to happen today?

"But of course! We are the temporary cast for the most youthful show in all of Konoha!" the bowl-cut jounin was practically on fire. "We are going to be on…" he threw the doors to the studio open and the younger shinobis cringed at the sight. "The Happy Funtime Kiddie Show!"

At the Hokage Tower, Tsunade was awakened from her mid-morning nap by the sound of teenagers screaming in anguish. She moaned. Couldn't people be in pain more quietly? She grabbed a random pile of paperwork to use as a pillow and went back to sleep.

"I'm leaving." Sasuke said simply once the screaming had died down.

"You can't leave!" Gai cried.

"I can and I will. A ninja has the right to refuse a mission, right? Well I'm refusing this one."

"Actually, you've been doing this mission since the day we first walked into the studio. This is only one part of an ongoing mission." Kakashi said, reasonably. "You can't reject part of a mission."

"No?" Sasuke glared then turned to his comrades. "All in favor of ditching this mission?" Lee was the only one who didn't raise his hand. "That settles it, we're gone."

"If any of you take one step out of that door I'll tell Hokage-sama and she'll demote you back to the first year of Academy." Threatened Kurenai. The teens flinched. "Think about it: no more missions, no more money, and…Iruka's lectures."

Once again the Hokage was awakened by the sound of young people screaming, only this time it was in terror. "Dammit, who do I have to kill to get some decent sleep around here?"

"All right! We'll cooperate! Just don't send us back to Iruka-sensei!" cried Naruto. "He'd kill me!"

"I don't want to get lectured again." shuddered Shikamaru, who was already reliving the lecture on chuunin decorum from the voodoo incident.

"Glad to hear it." Smirked Kurenai.

"Okay kidssss," A balding man with a lisp said (he said his name was Stan but nobody believed him). "I know you're all very excccited to be here! We're gonna have a ssssuper good time today! Here are your sssscriptsss."

"Yondaime-sama this is mortifying…" grumbled Sakura as she read through the script. "I hope nobody sees us."

"Then they would have to admit to watching the show." Shikamaru pointed out.

"Good point."

"Now that that'ssss done…Kiki!" Stan called. A girl with far too much makeup and a bad tan sauntered in. "Kiki will sssshow you to the dresssssing roomsss."

After going through makeup, wardrobe, and a quick overview of what was going to be happening, the group was finally ready for the taping.

"Ssmiless everyone! Remember, thissss isss a happy placcce!" Stan clapped his hands together. The show's theme song started playing; typical annoying, sugary sweet music that little kids love. Quite frankly it was sickening.

"Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop…" chanted Neji.

"Must resist…urge to….kill…"Sasuke was twitching again.

"Be strong guys, it's almost over." Kiba encouraged

"No, the horror is just beginning." Murmured Shikamaru. Lee was happily singing along to the song and trying to get the others to join him. When the song ended, Shikamaru was proven right.

"Greetings passionate youth of Konoha! Welcome to a special episode of The Happy Funtime Kiddie Show! I am the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha! Maito Gai!" Gai did his trademark pose. "Today is Monday and you know what that means?" he paused. "That's right! We have to sing, The Monday Song! But wait! Where are my Happy Helpers? I need their help to sing this song! Hey! Happy Helpers!"

Chouji, Naruto, and Kiba popped up from behind a bunch of crates; each of them were wearing a pair of overalls. Chouji's were blue, Naruto's were orange, and Kiba's were red.

"There are my Helpers!" Gai enthused. "Kiba-kun, Chouji-kun, Naruto-kun will you help me sing The Monday Song?"

"Mou, Gai-sensei," grinned Kiba. "We have a special new Monday song to sing for you!"

"A special Monday song?" blinked Gai.

"Yeah." Nodded Naruto. A march started up as Shikamaru (wearing grey overalls) popped up next to Chouji.

"What's the worst day of the week that gets us all depressed/ M-O-N, D-A-Y, S-U-C-K-S!" Chouji and Shikamaru sang.

"Here comes more aggravation and a brand new week of stress/ M-O-N, D-A-Y, S-U-C-K-S!" chimed in Naruto and Kiba. "Monday sucks."

"Monday sucks." Agreed Shikamaru and Chouji.

"Monday sucks."

"Monday sucks."

"Forever will it make us want to cry!"

"Cry, cry, scream!"

They all sang the last lines. "Come along and sing this song/ Now get it off your chest/ M-ON, D-A-Y, S…U….C….K…..S!"

The four disappeared leaving a dumbfounded Gai. Stan didn't seem too worried about it. The way he figured it, they could cut all that out in the editing. Gai snapped out of his stupor and chased the quartet down so they could sing the song properly. The next bit involved a lesson in colors featuring Sakura in a rabbit costume and a vegetable garden. However, somebody thought it would be a good idea to replace the rabbit costume with a Playboy Bunny outfit.

"Kakashi, put it back." Glared Kurenai.

"You never let me have any fun." Pouted Kakashi.

"My rival how could you even think of having your student wear such a humiliating outfit!" Gai accused.

"Pot calling the kettle black…" muttered Neji. The other boys (sans Lee who was just as appalled as Gai) snickered at that.

Once Sakura had the proper costume on they were ready to begin.

"Hi kids! I'm Usa-chan and I love vegetables so much I decided to grow my own!" Sakura was forcing herself to smile as she recited the cheesy lines. "Let's see what's ready to be picked!" she bent down and picked up a bundle of carrots. "Ooh, carrots! Hey kids, what color are these carrots?" she paused. "That's right, carrots are orange." She put the carrots down. "What else…Aha! Tomatoes! What color are tomatoes?" another paused. "Yes! Tomatoes are red!" she put the tomatoes down and picked up a head of lettuce. "And what color is the lettuce? (pause) Green! Yes! Oh you kids are so smart!" she put the lettuce down and hunted around for the next vegetable, corn, but couldn't find any. "Hey, where's the corn?" An ear of corn suddenly whizzed across the stage and hit her on the back of the head. "AWP! WHO DID THAT!" She heard Ino cracking up offstage. "YOU'RE DEAD INO-PIG!" she picked up a tomato and threw it. SPLAT!

"AUGH! YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT FOREHEAD GIRL!" shrieked Ino and hurled another ear of corn at Sakura-bunny. It would have continued if Shikamaru hadn't used Kagemane no Jutsu to restrain the girls.

Up next was story time and Stan made the mistake of letting Neji tell the story.

"Hello kids. I'm Hyuuga Neji and today I'm going to tell you the story of The Main House Birds and the Branch House Birds."

"Dammit Neji we already heard this story during the Chuunin Exam!" yelled Naruto.

"Silence infidel!" roared Neji causing everyone else to blink stupidly. "Now where was I…Ah yes… Once upon a time in a gigantic tree there lived a family of white birds. They were prized in all the land as the most beautiful birds in all the land and everyone would come to the tree to watch and be amazed. However, the birds had a terrible secret. Some of the birds were thought that they were better than the others and divided the tree so that they would get the higher branches with the nicer fruit while the rest were confined to the lower branches and forced to eat worms and the not-so nice fruit. The birds in the upper branches would torture the birds on the lower branches and subject them to constant ridicule… Until one day. One day the birds on the lower branches got tired of the unfair treatment and rose up in a massive united front to overthrow the evil birds!" Neji jumped up and stood on the chair he was sitting on and threw the book that he was supposedly reading at Hinata.

"Eek!" squeaked Hinata as she dodged.

"They pecked out their eyes and tore their wings and demanded that the curse seal be removed! Hiashi quivered in fear at the might of the Branch House! No more would they be slaves to the tyrannical Main House!"

"Damn, there he goes again." TenTen sighed. "Lee, go get the Clown Hammer…"

"How long is he going to keep ranting like that?" Asuma asked.

"Another hour if you let him." Lee came back and handed TenTen a gigantic mallet. "Thanks Lee." She leapt into the air and brought the mallet down on Neji's head. The Hyuuga made a goofy face before collapsing in an undignified heap on the stage. "Err…The End?" TenTen said sheepishly before dragging Neji off the set.

Stan decided to keep the footage for the Neji's Main House Rants archive, then asked Kakashi to do story time. He quickly changed his mind when the jounin started to read from Icha Icha Paradise Vol. 19: Icha Icha Hot Tub Party. So, the job of reading the story was given to TenTen.

Following that, was a skit involving Sasuke, several apple pies, and fractions (at the end of the skit all the pies were gone and Chouji was looking strangely satisfied), next was Lee and Gai who got to sing about the joys of friendship (and then proceeded to blubber all over each other in a disgusting display of brotherhood)

Finally it was over and they could all go home.

"Now don't you all feel good about yourselves!" enthused Gai, as high on life as ever.

"Yosh! The youth of tomorrow will surely be inspired by our performance today!" cheered Lee.

"Lee! Truer words were never spoken!"

(And because it would be weird if I didn't mention it…)

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

(All right that's enough of that.)

Two boxes soared through the air and smacked both Gai and Lee in their bowl-cut heads. Everyone looked over to see Neji growling like a wild animal.

"We had to do that stupid kids' show, I'll be damned if I have to listen to that too."

Are you lot happy now? You got your precious Hyuuga.