Danny hardly noticed the past three months flying by. How could he? Heart of Darkness was inches away from beginning filming, and Welles had been keeping his star cat busy. Between rehearsals, character sessions, and having to act in the occasional RKO newsreel (as per his contract with the company), the time for his Hollywood adventure had finally come.
One Thursday night, on the main soundstage that Heart of Darkness would be filming, Orson Welles assembled his cast and crew at the end of their working shifts. Stepping onto a soap box on the steamboat set, his towering presence brought the entire soundstage to silence without a word from him.
"Everyone, next Monday, we begin principle photography on Heart of Darkness," he announced, to the excitement and cheers of his crew. Excited himself, Welles grinned widely as he watched the exuberance of his fellow craftsmen. Danny shot him a smile right back, nudging his costar in the film (also a cat, at Welles' insistence) and sharing a grin with him as well.
"I must take a moment to say, thank you all. This studio has given a know-nothing radio man ultimate control over a major motion picture, unthinkable in this day and age. But, as most of you are well aware, that's not the only thing unthinkable about this film we're making. We're boasting the first ever major motion picture that places animal actors, particularly cats," he added, winking at Danny, "in every lead role! This film is history in the making, my friends. And because of that, RKO has extended a special, surprise invitation to you all."
The cast and crew looked at each other, not sure what to expect. Danny smiled wider, as Welles had let him in on the secret earlier in the week. It had taken every fiber of willpower he had to keep his mouth shut about it.
"As you may or may not be aware, RKO is the distributor of Dagmouse Animated Pictures. And, tomorrow night, will be the gala premiere of Mr. Dagmouse's, and the world's, first feature length animated film: Kitten Kenny Goes Hollywood. And as the cast and crew of the most anticipated film in RKO Pictures history, you've all been invited to the premiere!"
As to be expected, the crew exploded into excited chatter and fuss. Orson stepped down from his soap box and addressed Danny directly.
"I've been told to offer you extra tickets for your friends from Mammoth Studios," he said, holding out an envelope for Danny. "I trust you'll know where to find them." Danny's mouth was locked in a constant grin as he accepted the envelope from Welles, who pulled his paw into a handshake. Despite having worked closely with him for several months, Danny still couldn't get over how Welles never once treated him like an animal, never ruffled his hair, or jokingly pulled his tail... Danny was always an equal to him. And it took a lot to keep him from bursting into tears every time he realized it.
With the tickets in hand, Danny rushed out of the studio lot and toward the streetcar line, excited to share the news with his friends.
"A Dagmouse cartoon?" Sawyer nearly spat saying the name.
Pinky's Diner, a little dive a few blocks south of the Mammoth Studios backlot, was a usual haunt for the animal actors during lunch breaks and late night coffee runs. Danny was right to assume his friends would be here, instantly pulling up a chair next to Sawyer. Wooly was attempting to introduce Tilly to peanut tea, while Cranston and Francis were bickering. T.W. watched Danny with great interest, as he hadn't seen him at all in several weeks.
"Yeah! We're all invited to the premiere of the first ever feature length animated cartoon!" Danny gushed, distributing the admittance passes amongst his animal friends. Sawyer gingerly accepted hers, hissing lightly. Danny turned in surprise, only to see Sawyer smiling back at him.
"D-did you just hiss at the ticket?" Danny asked in astonishment. Sawyer shook her head, pursing her lips into a small smile.
"Yes, she did," barked Cranston from a booth over. Sawyer quickly crumpled up a napkin in front of her and threw it at Cranston. She turned back to Danny, who was staring in disbelief.
"Sawyer... I mean, I thought you'd be excited..." Danny mumbled, unable to contain his disappointment in her reaction. Sawyer sighed, and tried to take Danny's paw. A chill went down her spine when she realized how far she had to reach in order to take his paw into her hand, and how he didn't even try to offer it to her. A deadly silence fell over the diner, with all eyes on Sawyer and Danny. She sniffed lightly before speaking.
"Danny, have you ever watched a Dagmouse cartoon?" she asked him slowly, as if she was begging him to really listen to her words. True to form, Danny completely missed her subtle point.
"Of course I have, they play before every major movie. I thought you knew that," he explained, inducing a groan from Sawyer.
"Yes, I know, Danny. But have you ever really watched a Dagmouse cartoon? And understood what was going on?"
Danny's face twisted in confusion. Sawyer shook her head. Out of nowhere, T.W. jumped up onto the table and grabbed Danny by the cuff of his shirt.
"Wilbur Dagmouse hates animals! It's clear with every drawing that's ever flown from his pen! He hates us!"
"Hates us?" Danny exclaimed, stepping back in surprise. He lost his balance, falling onto one of the stools lining the counter. Seeing all his friends at once, he realized they were all solemnly nodding in agreement with T.W.
"Dreadful stuff, that," Wooly sniffed, turning his trunk up.
"We're portrayed as goofy morons, darling," Francis chimed in, flicking ash from the end of her cigarette.
"You go to the movies every week, Danny," Sawyer reminded him, standing from her seat and walking over to him. She put her arm gently around him. "You've never been offended by Kitten Kenny?"
"What? No! I think he's hilarious! He's just a cartoon character!" he added, after seeing the looks of horror on the faces of his friends at his answer. "He's not real."
"Danny, do you even understand the gravity of what we did at Mammoth Studios?" Wooly had left his booth, and was taking tremendous steps over to where Danny was seated. The entire diner shook with the shockwaves of his steps, finally ending in a climactic BANG when he sat down nearer to Danny.
"Well, of course!" Danny replied heartily.
"Lad, I don't think you do," Wooly replied, shaking his head. "You may not have noticed it back in Indiana, but in Hollywood, us animals had been treated as second-class citizens for decades. We haven't just been kept out of the movies. We've been kept out of jobs, out of neighborhoods, out of sight. For a very long time, we did the work that no humans would want to do."
"What?" Danny turned to Sawyer, hoping that she wouldn't confirm what he was hearing. She ran her paw against his cheek, sympathy in her gaze, but she still slowly nodded. Danny felt his soul sink.
"If it hadn't been for you, old boy, we might have never broken through the barrier. And things are starting to get better, if you haven't noticed. But it's the work of men like Dagmouse that'll hold us back." Wooly looked at Danny though his tiny spectacles. Danny could feel the warmth in his gaze, but it did little good.
"Maybe... if we meet with him... we can change his mind," Danny said, slowly allowing optimism to flow back into him. His friends didn't share his sentiment, however, as the sounds of groaning, disagreement, and Cranston mumbling "Oh, not this again..." filled the diner.
"Wait..." Sawyer called out, attempting to silence everyone. After a moment, the diner returned to it's eerie silence. "Maybe Danny's right."
Sawyer spun around to smile at Danny, and to catch a glimpse of his smile again. She shook his head playfully before turning back to the other animals. "If we could convince L.B. Mammoth to give us a shot, I don't see why we can't sway Wilbur Dagmouse in our favor as well."
The animals slowly began to come around. Danny and Sawyer exchanged another look, and she could see the immense gratitude in his eyes without him having to say a word.
"Goodnight, Sawyer," Danny said, sitting himself down on his couch and preparing to sleep. Sawyer stood in her night gown at the foot of the staircase, watching Danny for a minute.
"You know," she began, walking over to him, "the bed's big enough for two." Danny turned around in surprise, Sawyer had been keeping him at an arm's length for a while when it came to affection. Occasionally the two would hold hands or kiss, but for the most part she found it distasteful, especially in public and around their friends. Between how Sawyer had been at the diner, and now this, Danny's mind was quickly reeling.
"You mean it?" he asked cautiously, unsure whether Sawyer was serious or not. He got his answer as she took his paw and led him upstairs to her room.
Sawyer and Danny entered her bedroom as she switched on the light. There wasn't much to look at, just her modest bed, a few pictures and a vanity mirror on her dresser, but that didn't bother Danny in the slightest. Sawyer disappeared into a connecting bathroom in order to prepare for bed, leaving Danny to look around. On her vanity mirror, Sawyer had wedged a few old photographs into the grooves along the edge of the mirror. He laughed softly at the sight of Sawyer as a kitten, held in the arms of her mother.
Her mother didn't make an appearance in any of the other pictures. The rest showed young Sawyer in dance practices and singing in front of a small audience. Danny wasn't given much time to contemplate the photos, as Sawyer reemerged from the bathroom.
"I forgot about those," Sawyer murmured, putting her hands behind her back. Danny broke into a smile.
"Aw, don't tell me you're embarrassed by these!" he said, walking closer to her. She shook her head.
"No, I'm just not one for too much nostalgia. Ready?" she asked him. He nodded and climbed into the bed. Sawyer walked over to shut off the light, and she too got in bed. She crawled over next to Danny, wrapping an arm around him.
"Danny?" she asked, slowly. He turned to her, his eyes adjusting to the dark.
"Yeah?"
"You know I believe in you, right?"
Danny pulled Sawyer against him tight and she sighed, content.
Grauman's Chinese Theatre was all decked out in lights for the Kitten Kenny Goes Hollywood premiere. Danny stood in awe, taking in the sight of all the Hollywood brass coming out in droves to support a cartoon. He hadn't had a chance to enjoy the last premiere he attended, in part because he had found himself being chased by an enormous manservant across the roof of the building, so he wasn't going to waste this one.
On his arm, in a flowing red satin dress, Sawyer smiled as widely as she could manage given the circumstances, which equated to barely above a smirk. She flinched lightly when a photographer, aiming for the celebrities entering the theater, would temporarily blind her with their flashbulbs. More than anything else, she just wanted the night to go smoothly and move onto the next day. Having been run ragged at the agency, she wanted nothing more than to sleep through Saturday.
"Oh boy, this is exciting!" Danny said to her as the two of them took their seats in the theater. Sawyer attempted to sound as sincere as possible.
"Golly!" she managed to say with an adequate degree of enthusiasm. Danny spun his head around, looking for the rest of their friends. The seats reserved for them were empty. Where are those guys? Danny wondered just as the lights dimmed in the theater. A round of applause spread like wildfire as Wilbur Dagmouse took center stage.
"Thank you," he addressed the crowd humbly. "On behalf of all of us at Dagmouse Animated Pictures, I'd like to welcome you to the grand premiere of the first ever feature length animated production."
Another round of applause. Danny joined in enthusiastically. Sawyer, more reluctantly.
"The subject of our first feature was the fodder of much debate at our studio. For a while, we had explored doing a fairy tale, giving it new life through the wonder of animation. But, we eventually came to the conclusion that it would be best to start things out with what we started our company with. It all started with a cat."
Another round of applause. Dagmouse bowed slightly and stepped from the stage. The lights faded to leave the entire theater shrouded in darkness, and the movie started.
As enthusiastic as Danny had started out going into the premiere, he found it hard to maintain his energy as the cartoon progressed. Kitten Kenny and his animal friends were quite goofy, goofier than he remembered watching their shorts at the beginning of other films. But that wasn't what bothered Danny as much. What had him irked was the plot – Kitten Kenny leaving the farm to try and make it in Hollywood with his friends.
Sawyer noticed Danny's breathing change, and turned to look at him. She could see it all on his face; the embarrassment, the humiliation, the hurt...
The film reached the ending, with Kitten Kenny and his friends returning home. With a "Dagnabit, we gave it our best shot, fellas," they boarded a bus and left the gleaming city of Hollywood. The lights came back on in the theater and the film was given a standing ovation. Danny and Sawyer politely declined.
Danny looked to his left, and saw that the seats reserved for his friends were still vacant. With a disappointed sigh, he turned back to the stage to see Dagmouse under spotlight. He was joined by another man that neither he nor Sawyer knew.
"Well, that's only the beginning for us. I'd like to take a moment to re-introduce you to a friend of mine, who was a driving force behind this production. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Darla Dimple!"
Sawyer audibly gasped, but it wasn't heard over the sounds of cheering in the crowd. Danny's heart fell, not just because the littlest starlet was taking the stage, but because the hundreds of people around him didn't seem to know or care that not too long ago, she had attempted to drown him and his friends in her soundstage.
"Thank you, Wilby," she said sweetly, prompting a laugh from the audience. Sawyer hissed under her breath, and Danny couldn't help but share her sentiment. "I think it's just so precious how Kitten Kenny thought that he could make it in the big bad world of Hollywood! The movies just aren't right for animals, are they?"
Dagmouse gulped. With a nervous chuckle, he nodded. "Right. Not for animals."
"Cartoons are where animals belong, right, Mr. Schaefer?"
The man next to Dagmouse stepped forward. Danny's heart sank.
"Oh no..." he whispered. Sawyer turned.
"What? Who is he?" she asked. Danny began shaking his head.
"George Schaefer. Head of production at RKO Pictures."
Schaefer, now standing next to Darla, he patted her head. "Too right, Miss Dimple. We at RKO won't be bending to the impending Hollywood fad of 'Animal Pictures' like our rivals. We'll be ending production of any such films effective immediately, and will be refocusing our collaboration efforts with Dagmouse Animated Pictures."
Danny didn't hear a word after that. Through the elated crowd, Danny could see Orson Welles sitting a few rows ahead of him. He turned around and offered Danny a sad, apologetic look.
"Come on, Sawyer," Danny said, his voice graveled, "We're leaving."
Outside the theater, Danny stormed down the street, his head down and his hat pulled over his eyes. Sawyer ran to catch up to him, she had stopped to adjust her heels and expected Danny to wait for her. He hadn't.
"Danny! Slow down!" she called after him. Danny stopped, looking over his shoulder to watch Sawyer walk up beside him.
"So much for the dream," Danny said darky. Sawyer grabbed his face and shook him.
"Danny! This isn't you! You know that this is only a temporary setback, right? You'll bounce back."
"Not from this, Sawyer. If she can get away with what she did, with everyone still adoring her, how could we ever hope to get anywhere in this business?"
Danny began to start walking again. Sawyer watched him walk away, the opposite direction of the streetcar station that they would have taken home. She swallowed the lump in her throat, held her coat tightly to her, and slowly began to walk home.