In the human world, there had recently been a nasty pandemic and it brought back all those memories of humans being poisonous. Only this time they were. So Mike and Sulley had had to close the door to the human world. Just temporarily, of course. The Jokesters still had to go into the human world to harvest laughter, but humans were no longer to be brought into Monstropolis en masse.
But things changed today. Not too long ago, Mike and Sulley got the go-ahead from Disney that they could reopen the door to the Laugh Floor and start inviting guests back into the monster world.
So naturally, everything was hectic backstage at the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. In one corner, Buddy Boil was practicing his "telepathetic" powers. In another, Sam and Ella were arguing about the location of the Eiffel Tower. While Mike's little orange nephew Marty was busy reeling off some terrible jokes to a very unimpressed Roz (why was six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine!).
After a touching rallying speech by Mike Wazowski (that nobody really bothered listening to), the Laugh Floor opened to its first lot of humans.
Ten minutes the monsters spent running around backstage - readying props and setting up. Except Roz. Roz watched the chaos unfolding in front of her; stony faced on the outside, but probably dying of laughter on the inside.
Then, it was time to open. The purple monster Buddy Boil opened for Mike Wazowski and hyped the crowd up.
Mike took the stage. He fell right into the role he had before. He picked out a That Guy from the audience to pick on. He knew his speeches so well, it was like the last year and a half offstage hadn't happened. Then again, he'd been saying the same spiels day in, day out for the past fourteen years, Sulley and Celia had pointed out numerous times that he often spoke them in his sleep. Then he introduced the first act - the two-headed yellow monster, Sam and Ella.
Sam and Ella held a geography quiz, where they boasted about their (lack) of knowledge about the human world. Apparently the Eiffel Tower is in Arkansas now. And Orlando. And also New York. And there's also a blistering desert in New York. And Orlando is underwater. And Arkansas seceded yesterday to become its own country with its own national anthem.
Buddy Boil took the stage again. And picked out some random lady wearing a face mask to demonstrate his 'telepathetic' powers. Not that he could quite understand the face mask, but that the was talking without a mouth made her took like she'd be a great scarer - too bad they weren't hiring scarers anymore.
Unfortunately for Buddy, Roz got bored of his act and pushed a button sending him down the trapdoor.
Lastly, it was Marty's turn to take the stage. He called on some fellow children to help him tell some terrible jokes. The kind of jokes kids tell when they're just learning what jokes are (how do you make Lady Gaga mad? You Pokerface. Knock knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who. Orange you glad I didn't say banana? How do you make a tissue dance? You put a boogie in it. What time did the man visit the dentist? At tooth-hurty).
Just like that, the show was over.
It was terrible. A hot mess.
But it was a successful return by their standards.
And hey, even That Guy ended up pleased that the laugh canister got filled.
Now they only had twenty more shows of this left to go.
A/N:
The premise of Monsters Inc Laugh Floor is that you go through a door to the monster world (and they do have the door at the entrance before the preshow -it's all very clever) so they can tell jokes to you and harvest your laughter (It's laughter we're after!).
Monster's Inc Laugh Floor opened up nearly a year after Disney World during the pandemic. It wasn't because monsters were paranoid aboutdisease though, it was actually because of a pay dispute.