Henry and Stanley arrived at the TV station to talk to the producers. They went over to the secretary at the front desk for some customer service.
"Like, can I help you?" she asked the boys.
"Yes, we would like to speak with the producers of Peter Potamus Playhouse" Stanley replied "Do you think he's available?"
"Look, he's not seeing any client today, so please go" the secretary said as she filed her nails.
"Is he busy?" Stanley asked.
"How should I know?" the secretary rudely replied "I don't schedule his appointments...no wait, I do"
"So, is there any way we could possibly see him?" asked Henry.
"What's your reason for seeing him?" the secretary raised an eyebrow.
"We have complaints about his evil show!" Henry replied.
"You and a bajillion other adults" the secretary deadpanned.
"Wait, other people has complained about the show?" Henry asked as he and Stanley both arched their eyebrows.
"Duh" the secretary remarked "What do you expect from a kiddie show with an annoyingly jolly purple hippo who constantly sings about being special?"
"Good point" said Stanley.
The brothers turned and looked at each other.
"So, can we see him?" asked Henry.
"I told you, no!" said the secretary "Now please, go away!"
"Look lady, we have to see that producer" Henry pleaded "We've got eight younger brothers and sisters at home, and our two youngest ones won't stop playing Peter's evil show all day long! Morning, afternoon and night it's Peter Goes to the Zoo, Peter Sings the Alphabet, Peter at the Beach...it's practically killing us!"
The secretary thought for a moment "Okay kid, normally I wouldn't allow some random people to see the producers without an appointment, but for you and your bratty kids, I'll let you two in"
"Awesome!" Stanley said "So where's his office?"
"His office is upstairs on the seventh floor in room 709" said the secretary "You can't miss it"
"Gee thanks" said Henry.
Henry and Stanley went up the elevator to the producer's office.
"Here goes nothin" said Henry.
"Yep" Stanley nodded.
However, unbeknownst to the brothers, the moment they were out of view, the secretary smirked as she reached for the phone and dialed a number. In just a couple of minutes, Henry and Stanley made it to the office and knocked on the door.
There was some silence from the other side of the door. The door then opened up to reveal a sharply dressed man with shiny, blonde hair.
"Can I help you?" he asked the boys.
"Are you the producer of Peter Potamus Playhouse?" Henry asked the man.
"Yeah" said the man "Who wants to know?"
"My name is Henry Chan and this is my brother, Stanley" Henry explained "We have some comments and concerns about the show"
"I see" the man nodded "Come on in and we can discuss this in my office."
The boys then walked into the man's office and had a seat at his desk.
Stanley sat down "Thank you for inviting us into your office Mister...uh...you know, we didn't get that last name, or that first name for that matter"
"The name is C.N Miller" the producer replied "And what pray tell, do you boys have to say about my show?"
Henry cleared his throat "Well Mr. Miller, we're concerned about you airing Peter's Playhouse a lot lately and our siblings have been only watching it, so maybe you could possibly take the show off a few slots and maybe...give the other shows a chance? You know, so our brother and sister can see that there's more to life than Peter?"
"I see..." Mr. Miller nodded "And what's your issue with the show?"
Stanley gulped "Well Mr. Miller...I...well..."
"Your show is annoying, it's driving us insane and you're hardly letting other shows on the network" Henry deadpanned.
"There are rules in life, son" said Mr. Miller "And one of those rules is to never say those kinds of things to the producer of a show! Peter Potamus Industries doesn't take kindly to criticisms of our intellectual properties! Nobody, but nobody screws with my empire!"
"We're sorry for criticizing your empire" said Stanley "We just wanted our brother and sister to have some more moderation and variety in their TV viewing experience. I thought television was about making children laugh and smile"
"Sure it was...FOR THE FIRST TEN MINUTES!" shouted Mr. Miller "Now it's all about making money! DVDs, t-shirts, dolls, mugs, lunchboxes! Our market saturation is so precious and I won't let any hoodlums ruin it! And thats just phase one of our operation!"
"What operation?" Stanley asked.
Mr. Miller started manically laughing at Stanley's naivety.
"That's a little creepy" Henry gulped.
Mr. Miller grinned "Soon, we will unveil Phase Two: the Peter Potamus Cable Channel! Twenty four hours of non-stop Peter Potamus programming and adveristing! Plugging every single conceivable product and selling like crazy!"
"Oh yeah? Well, we won't let our brothers and sisters watch your evil channel, we'll use the parental controls if we have to!" Stanley exclaimed.
"That's where you're wrong, boys." Mr. Miller smirked.
"Oh really?" asked the boys.
"Yes" Mr. Miller grinned "By the time the third phase kicks in, we won't even need television sets! We'll be beaming our programming into children's brains via small receivers secretly implanted during routine dental checkups!"
"You know, I'm starting to think you're a greedy dirtbag" said Stanley.
"It doesn't matter what you think, because you two will never live to tell anyone about it!" Mr. Miller smirked.
"What makes you say that?" asked Henry.
Mr. Miller responded by snapping his fingers and in just an instant, the office doors opened up to reveal two big, strong security guards who apprehended the boys.
"Hey! What are you doing?" demanded Stanley.
"Take the boys down to underneath the station, where they won't be able to stop our diabolical plot!" Mr. Miller ordered the guards.
"Yes sir" the guards nodded as they dragged Henry and Stanley away.
"Stop! You can't do this!" Henry shouted as he and his brother were being dragged away.
Mr. Miller manically laughed "Bye bye boys, and remember, you're special!"
The brothers were then dragged down to the elevator, which went down and down, until they reached a very dark and damp place underneath the building surrounded by jail cells that had many other adults in them.
"Wh-what's going on? Where are we?" Stanley asked, fearfully.
"This is the place where we lock up all adults who have dared to try to cross the line" said one of the guards "For anyone else who tried to screw with Mr. Miller's empire. You're gonna be in here for the rest of your days!"
The guards then dragged the brothers into an empty cell before slamming the door shut.
"Well this is just great, now we're incarcerated!" Henry folded his arms.
"And we're stuck in this jail cell, too" Stanley added.
"We've gotta get out of here!" Henry said.
Stanley saw something outside the cell "Uh, Henry..."
"Not now, Stanley, I'm trying to think..." Henry told his brother.
"But Henry..." Stanley tapped on Henry's shoulder again.
"Stanley, please" Henry said as he continued.
Stanley tried to talk again "But Henry-"
"Zip it, coconut head!" Henry said as he was getting more frustrated.
Stanley spoke again "But Henry, if you would just listen..."
"Fine, what?" asked Henry.
"He left the keys in the door" Stanley said as he pointed to the keys in the hole of the cell door.
"Oh" said Henry "Well why didn't you say something?"
"I was trying to" Stanley deadpanned.
"Anyways, that is really careless of the guard." Henry said. "Though I hope that this isn't a trap."
"There's only one way to find out" said Stanley "Come on"
Stanley then turned the keys and unlocked the door. Our heroes were free.
"Dude, that was way too easy" Henry remarked.
"Tell me about it" said Stanley "Now come on, let's get these other adults out of here!"
"Right." Henry nodded as they headed out of their cell.
And so, Henry and Stanley managed to free the other adults from their cells and allowed them to escape.
"Okay Stanley, let's get out of here!" exclaimed Henry.
"Right behind ya, bro" nodded Stanley.
The brothers then followed the other adults out of the building.
Unfortunately, the elevator was too small for all of them to fit inside, so they each got out the building one group at a time. Finally, Henry and Stanley were the only ones left.
"Bout time too" said Stanley "Come on!"
"You know, I was thinking that there's something we should be doing, Stan." Henry said as they waited inside the elevator.
"What's that, big bro?" asked Stanley.
"Isn't there something we can do to stop Mr. Miller's evil plan?" Henry asked. "I mean, if we escape, we still are letting him brainwashing our siblings unless we stop him."
"But how do we stop his evil plan?" asked Stanley "It's our word against his and he's fooled them all!"
"Good question." Henry said. "But whatever we do, it has to be quick, because this is something that our siblings will have to depend on."
The boys then decided to ponder on something, when all of a sudden, they heard some sort of growling noise in the distance of the prison.
"Hey Stanley, I think I hear something" said Henry.
"Hear what?" asked Stanley.
"Listen." Henry whispered.
The boys stopped talking and listened carefully to the moaning noise.
"It's coming from over there" Henry pointed to the right "Come on!"
Henry and Stanley followed the sound right to some sort of cage with someone inside of it.
The person inside the cage was tied up and gagged, hence the muffling noise; it was a familiar looking purple hippo in a safari outfit.
"Peter Potamus?!" the boys gasped.
Peter muffled and wriggled again.
"Quick! Let him out!" Stanley exclaimed.
Henry used the keys to unlock Peter's cage and untie and gag him.
"Oh, thank goodness." The man behind the suit said. "That cage was too small for me in this blasted suit."
The man took the head off of his costume and revealed himself.
"You're Peter Potamus?" asked Henry.
"Well no actually, I'm just Peter Potamus' understudy" said the man "My name is Francis Confine. I am the one who does Peter's personal appearances and humiliating events when he's out doing equally humiliating events and personal appearances"
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Confine" Henry shook his hand "My name is Henry Chan and this is my brother, Stanley"
"What on Earth is a man like you doing in a dirty place like this?" Stanley asked as he shook Mr. Confine's hand.
"It's a long story" Mr. Confine said as he looked around "Right now, the important thing is to get out of this place before that tyrant discovers that his prisoners has escaped."
Around that same time, the two guards who dragged Henry and Stanley into the cells were in the security office going through some stuff.
"Another day bites the dust, right Joe?" asked the first guard.
"Whatever, Kevin" said Joe "Just shut up and help me find the boss' paperwork. You know how irritable he gets if we don't bring it to him before the show goes on the air"
"Sure thing." Kevin nodded before reaching into his pocket, which is where he normally put the keys to the cells, and felt that it was noticeably light.
He reached into his pocket and found out that there was nothing inside.
"Aaaahhhh!" he screamed "Aaaaahhhh!"
"What is it now, Kevin?" asked Joe.
"Oh the boss is so gonna kill me" Kevin gulped.
"Oh please tell me you didn't lose the keys again" Joe deadpanned.
"If I didn't, why did I just scream?" Kevin asked.
Joe slapped his head in annoyance "If the boss catches us without the keys, he'll fire us on the spot! Where did you last have them?"
Kevin thought for a moment "Well...I last had them when I locked those two young men into the..."
Joe and Kevin then realized something.
"...the cell!" they said in unison.
"Drat!" Joe said. "This is another fine mess you've gotten me into, Kevin."
"Well, it would be alright if we go down to the cells and recover the keys." Kevin said. "Let's go now!"
The two goons headed downstairs to the prison, only to find that the cells were all empty.
"Oh, great." Kevin said. "Now we're gonna be fired."
"He's not gonna fire us for this, Kevin." Joe deadpanned. "He's not that nice."
"Good point" said Kevin "We have to get those prisoners back before the boss' empire is done for"
"No worries" said Joe "All we have to do is go back to the security room, watch the surveillance tapes and then, we'll be able to find out where those prisoners went, get them back here and the boss will never know"
"I hope you're right." Kevin said. "Let's get moving."
The two then went off to gather up all of the escaped prisoners, especially the Chan brothers.
Author's Note:
Looks like Henry and Stanley are about to have their work cut out for them with Peter Potamus' understudy. Can they put a stop to Mr. Miller's evil empire, or will all the adults lose their insanity? Stay tuned!