Dataverse.TV - Omniverse Internet Television

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 3,896,776 The Trading Card Game Channel - Commercial break. Voiceover in BOLD.

A man with a backpack stands under a street-lamp in front of a cinderblock wall on Tier 4 of Coruscant - you can tell, because there's a great, big, red neon sign flashing behind him that says "TIER 4" in block letters. He's dressed in a shabby t-shirt and ill-fitting slacks. His shoulders are hunched, his shoes are untied, his greasy, black hair is a mess, and his glasses are taped in the middle. 
The man looks left, clearly nervous. Then he looks right. Apparently satisfied, he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a book. 
Suddenly, the wall explodes! An eight-foot tall, shaven-headed man-beast with bright red skin, tiny cut-off shorts, dozens of obscene tattoos, and pectorals the size of small children erupts onto the scene, screaming.
'NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRD!' The new arrival grabs the guy with the glasses by the head - which easily fits in the palm of one enormous meaty hand - and slams him face-first into the sidewalk!

The frame freezes with the nervous reader's face pressed against the pavement, glasses breaking, one cheek flattened and eyes crossed in an expression of horrified surprise, caught in the moment before, presumably, his head explodes. 
DOES THIS HAPPEN TO YOU?

The frame cuts to a rapid-fire montage of the enormous red antagonist face-ramming, choke-slamming, drop-kicking, or otherwise pulverizing a variety of surprised intellectuals in a shocking array of locations, from libraries to sailboats to fully furnished living-rooms. He explodes from the nearest horizontal surface, bellowing the accusation, and then sets about his violent tasks with gusto.   
THEN YOU NEED: THE OMNITONE WORKOUT PROGRAM! (PROGRAM! PROGRAM! PROGRAM!) 

A group of skinny people in tracksuits are running in a sunny, forested area. They look nervous.

THE OMNITONE WORKOUT  PROGRAM PROVIDES THE TECHNIQUES AND MOTIVATION YOU NEED TO GET SERIOUSLY RIPPED!

The camera pans out. We can now see that they are being chased by that same enormous guy. His cardio evidently isn't very good, because he doesn't seem to be enjoying it much more than they are. The words "Seriously Ripped!" flash repeatedly on the screen in big red letters. 

IN JUST EIGHT WEEKS, WITH THE HELP OF OUR DEDICATED TRAINERS, YOU'LL GET THE BODY YOU'VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF!

A beatiful blond woman in a green bikini lounges with a beach in the background, sipping a drink from a coconut. Suddenly, she dips out of the frame. Just as abruptly, she returns. The camera pans out to reveal that she, and the chair she's lounging on, are being supported on the shoulders of a skinny - although far more muscular than the ones who were running earlier - man who is in the process of doing many, many squats. The red guy looks on, his expression vaguely approving. 

SO CALL TODAY!  1-888-STOP-THE-PAIN-WITH-YET-MORE-PAIN. THAT'S  1-888-STOP-THE-PAIN-WITH-YET-MORE-PAIN

The red guy stands in front of a wall of rapidly scrolling text, which explains the many things that, by viewing this ad, you've agreed that the Omnitone Workout program can't be held legally responsible for. They include 'the Wrath of the Emperor', 'Guu', 'Carnivorous plants', 'eaten by velociraptors', and 'Steam-Locomotive-Related Injuries'. 

"I'm Max Omnitone," he says. "And I approve this message.You NEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRDS!"

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 199,999,991 - The Medical Drama Channel - Doctor Ghidorah, MD.   Subtitles in BOLD

Fade in. A muppet of King Ghidorah - the monster version, with three heads and golden wings - is sitting at a mahogany desk. He wears a tweed vest and tie, with his wings protruding from the armholes (this despite the fact that each wing is larger than the entire vest once you get past the shoulder-joint). The desk has an ink-blotter, and a fountain pen in an ink-well on one side, as well as an old-fashioned rotary-phone. Behind him is a book-case full of impressive-looking medical texts. There are framed diplomas on one wall, though the print is too small to read on this screen. There's a pair of comfortable-looking chairs as well. Natural light illuminates the scene, as though from a picture-window.

 His middle head is wearing reading glasses. There's a book open on the desk. The middle head roars.

CONFOUND IT ALL! WHOEVER WROTE THIS MANUAL IS AN ILLITERATE MORON!

The left head cackles

HEY! I WROTE THAT!

The middle head hisses. 

NO YOU DIDN'T, YOU CLOD. THIS IS THE IMPERIAL DSM!

The right head growls disappointedly. 

BUT IT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT, THOUGH. I SAY WE STICK TO WHAT I LEARNED IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. 

The other two heads very purposefully don't look at each other. The the right head stares at the camera. Cue laugh track, followed by a moment of awkward silence.

It's broken by a knock on the door. All three heads chortle. 

COME IN!

A man walks into the frame.  He's young, black, and handsome, wearing surgeon's scrubs. He mugs for the camera. The studio-audience whistles and cheers. 

"Doctor," the new arrival says. "I need to consult with you about a patient of mine." 

The middle head squeals. 

YES, DOCTOR ALLEN. WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM?

Doctor Allen pulls up a chair  and sits down at the desk across from Ghidorah. He gestures with his hands as he talks. "The man's in a coma. He's got the most remarkable series of burns I've ever seen, as well as severe blunt trauma. The injuries overlap each other, almost like he was scorched and bludgeoned at the same time - and to top it all off, they form this weird, branching fractal pattern, almost like electrocution!"  

All three heads look at the camera. The audience 'OOOOOoooooo's. 

Doctor Allen shifts in his chair. "As the Omniverse's foremost expert on exotic injuries, and because your office is only right down the hall from mine" - pause for laugh-track - "I thought it made sense to come to you."  

The right head chortles twice, then roars. 

WELL DOCTOR. WITHOUT HAVING CONDUCTED A THOROUGH EXAMINATION, I CAN'T SAY FOR CERTAIN, BUT IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE THIS MAN WAS A VICTIM OF A TRAGIC HANGLIDING ACCIDENT. HE DOUBTLESS FLEW INTO A SCHOOL OF RARE, ELECTRO-BLUDGEONING AIR-SQUID.

The left head chortles. No subtitles, he's just laughing. Doctor Allen doesn't seem to notice, stroking his chin and looking thoughtful. "Hm. I don't think so. They only swarm in breeding season, and that's not for another couple of months, but it's a possibility. Will you come examine the patient?"

All three heads roar.

CERTAINLY!  

Just as Ghidorah is getting up, the phone rings. Ghidorah tries to pick it up with his wing, then his mouth, but it just isn't working. Eventually, clearly embarrassed for his colleague, Doctor Allen gets it for him, and holds it up to his middle head.

The middle head roars.

HELLO?

"Doctor Ghidorah? It's your lawyer." 

Ghidorah sqeals. 

DAVE? WHAT'S HAPPENING, OLD BOY? HOW'S THE LIVER? 

"It's fine G. But... listen. You're wife's suing you. She says she wants to re-draw the pre-nup. "

All three heads' eyes bug out. The scene cuts to THIS  for the rest of the time-slot, only Ghidorah is still wearing his glasses, vest and tie.

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 322,227  - The True Crime Channel - When the Magic Fades (Episode 223): My Magical Animal Companion Was A Pro-Globalization Anarchist. Narration in Italics!

Fade in. A grainy black and white image of an adorable creature half-way between a cat and a bunny - spotted fur and long fuzzy ears - two pairs, in fact. It's sitting on a speakers' podium with a microphone in front of its little pointed face, and one tiny furred fist in the air. There's a small bandanna tied around its forehead. In front of it, stormtroopers are struggling with a crowd of furious protesters dressed in rags, metal and leather. As the narration begins, the image slowly tilts, zooming closer on the little creature's face.

So how was it that Hopu-Hopu-chan made the journey from beloved magical totem, and hero for great justice, to bloodthirsty revolutionary? 

The shot cuts to an image of a pretty young japanese woman with shoulder-length hair, dressed in an apron and a long-sleeve shirt. She's happily serving people plates of waffles in an open, cheery room with potted plants lining the walls and restaurant booths tucked away in the corners.

Nanako Yashida, his former owner and best friend, has some ideas. 

Cut to Nanako, sitting on a stool in a kitchen, with row upon row of spotless chrome griddles, spatulas and stovetops gleaming in the background. Her hands are folded in her lap. 

"Nanako Yashida - Owner of Waffles of Justice Happy Breakfast Emporium/Former 'Magical Girl'' Appears in the bottom left hand corner of the screen in plain white text. 

"I think it started after we finally defeated the dark lord of destruction EbeneXer. I didn't really have any magical enemies left to fight after that, which left either going after the yakuza or beating up homeless people. Neither of those seemed like good uses for the power of the Dream Galaxy, so instead I finished high-school."

Nanako frowns, looking sad.

"Hopu-Hopu-chan had been enemies with EbeneXer for ten thousand years, though. He didn't know what to do, with no evil to fight, and he started spending a lot of time online. I probably should have paid more attention to him. He began going to rallies while I was at school, and I was making so many new friends since I didn't have to be out on patrol every night anymore. It got to a point where we almost only ever saw each-other at bed-time, and he mostly wanted to talk about really... odd... politics." 

Cut to a color photograph of Hopu-Hopu-Chan, sitting on a park bench by himself. Tier-1 Coruscant's skyline rises in the background.

So even before arriving in the Omniverse, Hopu-Hopu-Chan was beginning to gravitate towards radical ideologies. But why, after coming here, with so much evil to fight, did he continue down that path? Rakendal Burzdun, professor of abnormal psychology at the Imperial University in Coruscant may have the answer. 
 
Cut to an older gentleman in an ill-fitting sweater. He's bald, his skin is a severe shade of olive-green, and his eyeglasses are slightly too small. 'Rakendal Burzdun - Abnormal Psychologist' appears in the bottom left hand corner. 

"The thing you need to understand about Primes who gravitate towards these seditious, hybrid ideologies, especially the one's that espouse a utopian view of decentralized interversal government, is that they are psychological addicts. By the time he arrived in the Omniverse, Hopu-Hopu-Chan was already hooked on a sensation of righteous persecution by a nebulous, sinister 'system'. 

He makes quote marks with his fingers.

"Of course," the professor continues, "as the most powerful central authority in the Omniverse, it was only natural for such a damaged and obsessive mind to focus its neurosis on the Empire."  

The shot cuts to black for a moment. 

Coming up,  After the break...

A picture of Hopu-Hopu-Chan glowing with power, his little red bandana flapping in an unseen breeze. Graffiti-covered buildings line the streets on either side, and a mob of angry people is at his back. 

Cut to a man in prison grays and manacles, sitting in a cell. "You've gotta understand - Hopu-Hopu understood. He got it. That's what people responded to." 

Cut to a stormtrooper with his helmet off, and his face blurred out. When he speaks, his voice is distorted. "Off the record? The fuzzy little bastard was really persuasive. Like, really, really persuasive."

Cut to an old man in a windbreaker and slacks leaning on the rail of a pier, looking out over the Vasty Deeps. He says to the camera  "You wanna know about Hopu-Hopu? That lop-eared hellcat... if he'd had his way he'd have either saved the Omniverse or burned it to the -bleep-  ground. And you know - I'm not entirely sure he'd have known the difference." 

Cut to a grainy photograph of Hopu-Hopu-Chan looking freakin' adorable atop the chest of a dead stormtrooper.  His little fist is in the air. An unknown voice says "Not since the battle of Coruscant have I seen that much blood (blood- blood-blood)" 

Cut to black. 

All this and more, when 'When the Magic Fades' returns. 

[Hiro Protagonist]

Channel 44,574. The Grindhouse Movie Channel.
The screen is black, with the following words appearing in bold typewriter font.

Coming this summer.

The true story the Empire doesn't want you to know

About our Emperor's rise to power

And his journey through the seedy underbelly of the Omniverse.



Rex McDougall stars as Emperor Palpatine

With Frank Sheffield as Aragorn

And introducing Kelly Geraldine

In a film that was banned in Camelot, The Moors, and even The Oververse

The story of

[King Ghidorah]

Channel  >  - The Angry Channel  - Rageface Part II: Shlurnbees  (title card)

Outdoors. Evening. A middle-aged man in a business suit - fairly nondescript, black hair, slight build, ethnicity indeterminate - walks into a 7-11 gas station and convenience-mart. The doors slide shut behind him. Cut to inside the store. The man looks tired, presumably from a hard day at the office. His tie hangs loose and his suit is rumpled, but there's a smile on his face - not of satisfaction, but anticipation. He walks around the brightly lit convenience-mart aisles, past rows of corn-chips and candy bars, head turning left and right, clearly looking for something. Eventually, after going through the whole store twice, he sidles up to the counter and speaks to the cashier, a pretty young woman in a company shirt. 

"Excuse me miss. What happened to your Slurpee machine? I can't seem to find it." 

The woman smiles brightly, contriving to look apologetic. "I'm sorry sir. Slurpees have been discontinued." 

The man looks at her. He frowns. His frown deepens. He rubs the back of his neck and closes his eyes tightly. His frown deepens even further,as though he's in genuine pain. 

The cashier, concerned, says "Sir, are you alright?"

"Slurpees." he says, his eyes snapping open. 

"I'm sorry sir, there are no more Slurpees. You're welcome to buy a different bev-" 

The man's eyes widen, and his frown deepens even further, contorting his jaw. "Slurpees!" 

The cashier takes a step back. "Sir... I think I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Cut to outside the store. Suddenly, the front window smashes, broken from inside by a flying espresso-machine. The man steps out onto the pavement through the broken window, his eyes bugging out, his hair a mess, and his face twisted into a grotesque mask of apocalyptic rage. Smash-zoom to the man's horrible snarl. 

"SLUUUURRRRRRPEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!" He howls, turning his face to an uncaring sky and shaking his fists.

Freeze-frame. Cue funk-guitar. The title card appears one word at a time, superimposed over the man's screaming face.

RAGE FACE PART II:

SHLURNBEES

 

[Kelly MacAryn]

Channel 12,489,734,389,734,343,978,394,973,943 - The Blue Collar Crime Channel - Commercial Break.  Quiet end-of-ad rapid-speak disclaimer in italics. 

A serious-looking, middle-aged man with crew-cut iron-gray hair is standing in front of a burgundy office wall. His hands are clasped in front of him. He has the sort physique that leads men of his vintage to brag that they 'played some ball in college', and his navy-blue, three-piece suit is so crisply ironed that one almost worries going to cut himself on the pleats in his trousers. Hanging from the wall on his right is a law degree in a bronze frame. Below it on the floor is a potted plant which is clearly made of plastic. Obviously this is a very sober professional, with a sober, professional message for the viewer. 

"Are you a Prime?" he asks, inclining his head and furrowing his brow just enough to show that he is clearly concerned about every member of his audience. "Are you experiencing difficulties of a legal nature in Camelot or the Pale Moors? Are you being hunted by Gorons? Has the Empire levied a bounty on your head? Through no fault of your own are you being held responsible for grand theft, property damage, or massive loss of life?"

The man walks to the left side of the screen, and the camera pans to follow him as he sits down on the corner of a desk, surrounded by book-shelves full of imposing legal texts, with yet more diplomas on the walls. "Then the lawyers of Johnson, Mason & Wamuu are on your side. Hi. I'm Thomas Mason, one the senior partners at Johnson, Mason & Wamuu. Our team of legal experts knows that Law and Order in the Omniverse can be complicated, and that culpability isn't always as clear as it may seem. So if you're in need of representation for a trial by jury,"

The image cuts to Mr. Mason looking very convincing in a courtroom.

"Trial by Combat,"

The picture cuts to a towering adonis of a man with an impossibly perfect body-builder's physique. He's dressed in an azure and gold knee-length skirt, of the sort worn by Egyptian pharaohs, as no tailored suit could possibly contain such muscular perfection - though  he has made a concession to his lawyerly profession by donning a pair of tiny spectacles and a somber red tie.  His long blond hair is standing straight up in a ragged flat-top, and he has a square tribal tattoo in the middle of his face. One heavy golden ring hangs from each ear, as big around as a normal man's fist. He is striking a bodybuilder's pose over the shattered form of a knight in armor.

"Or mediation with the Imperial authorities," 

Cut to an image of a skinny, bald man with gray skin, and red compound eyes. His suit is so black that the cut is hard to make out, his shirt is blindingly white, and his tie is the color of iron-rich human blood. We find him in animated discussion with a stormtrooper in black armor wearing a red cape and sash. The picture is strangely off-center, however. To a person with a discerning eye something has clearly been cropped out of the frame. 

"Or any other sort of legal dispute,  then we want to help you."

The image cuts back to the room with the desk. In addition to Mason sitting on the corner, the gray-skinned man with the compound eyes is now sitting behind the desk with his long, thin fingers steepled beneath his chin, and the barbarian is standing beside them with his steel-cable arms crossed over his V-8 engine-block of a chest.

A dataverse address - JohnsonMasonWamuu@TheRealLawyers.Dataverse.Net - scrolls across the bottom of the screen in white sans-serrif letters, followed by a phone-number. 

All three men speak in chorus. "So Call Johnson, Mason & Wamuu. Prime Lawyers, for Prime Problems!" 

Johnson, Mason & Wamuu are not licensed to practice in the Frozen Fields, the Tangled Green or Costa del Sol. Only Wamuu is licensed in the Endless Dunes and the Ashen Steppes. Standard fees apply. 

[Kelly MacAryn]

Channel 4 - The Cooking Channel - Get Beefed: Omniverse Cooking With Beef Tillerson (Series finale) 

A tall, bulky young man wearing a chef's hat, an apron, and a red muscle-shirt with a picture of his own face on it stands behind a counter in a lavishly appointed chrome-steel kitchen. He speaks quickly, moves decisively, and he has the kind of hyperkinetic smile that in anybody other than a cooking show host suggests they have a jar full of severed thumbs in the glovebox of their car. 
On top of the counter there are mixing bowls filled with ingredients. Spinach. Lettuce. Steaks. Something gray and rubbery that twitches occasionally and leaks black fluid. There are also several bottles of various sauce, a pepper-grinder, and an assortment of knives. 
The host begins to talk. Instantly, the more perceptive viewers suspect they have made a serious mistake. 
"Heyyyyyyyyyyyy!  Cookers and Hookers! It's The Beef, comin' atcha live from the bitchin' kitchens of Costa del Sol! We got somethin' really special for you today, so keep your hands outta your panties and your sunglasses on, cause this is gonna get Hot!" 

'The Beef' punches the air and does a little spin. All of us die a little inside. He turns his attention to the counter, gesturing with open hands to indicate the spread. 

"I'm gonna show all," he says uncharacteristically calm for a moment, "how to make hamburgers." The wattage on his grin increases back to its normal level and he drums on the counter with his hands. "WEREWOLF hamburgers. The stuff in this bowl here is 100% premium werewolf, straight from the Pale Moors! Now, if you're a finicky bitch, you might be saying to me, 'Beef, aren't werewolves people? People who are sometimes dogs?' Well, maybe you wouldn't eat a person, and maybe you wouldn't eat a dog - I don't know you, you might eat dogs. I eat eats dogs - but let me tell ya, that's no reason not to eat a werewolf. They're full of omega-3s, they got all kindsa natural hormones that'll help you bulk up fast, and there's enough vitamin E in 'em to last you all week. Besides, they'd eat you, so it's only fair, and when you mince 'em up really fine and mix 'em with steak....UNF."

Beef makes a face we would have paid him millions not to make. 

The host rearranges the bowls on the counter, dumping out the contents of the bowl with the gray-and-black stuff in it onto a cutting board and pulling out an impressive-looking knife. "Now, the first thing you gotta do is catch and butcher your werewolf. My bro Chadwick took care'a that for me before the show, which just leaves the preparation. Now the first thing you gotta do, is mince your werewolf up real fine. "

He holds up the knife for the camera. The camera zooms in as he turns it so that the audience can get a good look. "I'm using a santoku knife, high-carbon steel. I've doped the edge with silver to keep the meat from regenerating. That's very important when you're preparin' werewolf! If you forget, you'll be cuttin' all day!"

The camera zooms out and Beef begins to dice up the stack of werewolf-meat with quick, expert strokes. 

"Now, as you at home can see, my technique is pretty dope. What I'm doing here, I'm dragging the knife across the flesh, lettin' the blade do the work. That's very important when you're preparing raw werewolf. It'll get tender after you cook it, but when its still fresh its tough as anything." 

Suddenly, there's a bang from offscreen. Someone screams. A deep male voice says 'Hey, you can't be in he-' Only to be abruptly cut off by an electric crackle. 

Beef looks up, indignant. "Hey, what the hell, marty? Get those assholes off the set! I'm tryin' to do a show he-"

"HE'S GOT A KNIFE!"

A barrage of ruby-red blaster-fire rips into the kitchen, overturning pots and pans, exploding gas-powered cooking-ranges, and sending 'The Beef' ducking behind his counter. Stormtroopers with Costa del Sol unit insignia on the shoulders of their white-plated armor swarm across the screen, drag the host from his hiding place and slam him facedown on the counter, sending his chef's hat rolling and overturning the one surviving bowl of ingredients.

"Target secure," one of them says. Another addresses the host, artificially-modulated voice even and near-emotionless. 

"You can't do this to me, Bro!" screams Beef. "I"m The Beef!"

"Maurice 'Beef' Tillerson, you're under arrest for violation of Imperial code 197.23.4.7, subclause 9: Unsanctioned Preparation of -... wait. Is that camera still on?" 

The trooper who appears to be in charge points at the camera and storms towards it, helmet looming large as he closes in. "TURN THAT OFF RIGHT N-" 

The screen goes to a smiling still-frame of Beef holding a tray of muffins. 

"Get Beefed: Omniverse Cooking with Beef Tillerson, will no longer be shown on this station. Tune in Next week for: Journey to The Lost City of Pancakes!"

[Kelly MacAryn]

Channel > - The Angry Channel - Rageface Part II: Shlurnbees (Act 1, Scene 6/Scene 7)

A familiar middle aged man of indeterminate ethnicity, his build slight, his hair black, and his face contorted with apocalyptic rage is running pel-mel through the streets of a 90's-era American city. His suit is in disarray. His hair is a rats-nest.  He is so angry that his jaw has locked and gone crooked. He is so angry that his eyes are almost bugging out of his head. He is so angry that a little muscle in his forehead is twitching in time with his pulse, and the veins on his neck are all standing out fit to burst. 

He is no longer a mere man. He is Rageface. 

As he runs through the streets, he stops for nothing. People blown off their feet at his merest touch. Cars slam on their breaks. Some stop in time, some don't. It doesn't matter - those that strike him crumble into masses of twisted metal against the unyielding barrier of his all consuming Rage. His anger defies the very laws of mass and inertia, of biology and stamina. 

"SLURR-PEEESS!" he howls, exploding through the side of a semi-truck in a shower of Mountain Dew and shattered plastic bottles. 

"SLURR-PEEEESS!" he screams, skidding to a halt and tearing apart an ice-cream stand with his bare hands in futile search for his one true icy treat.  

Cut to an aerial view. Police cars screech to a halt around him and officers pile out onto the pavement, leveling their guns. 

Cut to an officer's face as he crouches behind the hood of his car. "SIR!" he proclaims through a megaphone. "IF YOU DO NOT CALM DOWN WE WILL BE FORCED TO OPEN FIRE!" 

Rageface does not calm down. 

A hail of gunfire erupts from all directions, but the projectiles do nothing, clattering harmlessly to the ground. We zoom in on the bullets freezing in mid-air, cowed by Rageface's Rage-field. This man needs some goddamn artificially-flavored ground-ice smoothie-substitute, and if he doesn't get it the entire world is going to pay. What is a mere bullet compared to that? 

Smash-cut to a view of Rage-face's rage-face from over a policeman's shoulder as he rushes the barricade.

"SHLURRRRRR-BEEEEEES!"

 --Scene change -- 

A top down view, from just above the ceiling fan, of a dull office. There is a bald, portly man in general's uniform and glasses sitting at an institutional-green metal desk, reading reports. Cut to a frontal view of the desk. We can now see that there is a black-and-white 'VICTORY' Poster on the wall with a picture of a mushroom cloud on it on the wall behind the general, as well as a variety of framed pictures and medals.

There is a knock at the door. 

"Come in," says the general. 

Cut to a side-view. A pencil-necked analyst in full nerd regalia comes into the room with a sheaf of papers under one arm. 

"General Cific? There's a problem sir. Codename: Rageface has relapsed."

The room is silent. The ceiling fan squeaks.

"My God," says the General, taking off his glasses, a stunned expression plastered on his jowly countenance. 

"I'm afraid it gets worse sir," Says the analyst. "His trigger.... sir, this time..."

The analyst gulps. 

"It was the Slurpees."  

The general closes the report on his desk. "Get me the FDA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President of 7-11," he says. "We can only pray there's still time."

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 7,899,087 - The Cautionary Channel - Hidden Enemies (Episode 8,892): The Cornish Game Hen - intro segment. Narration in Bold Italics

Fade in on a Cornish Game Hen, standing in the grass. It looks like a regular chicken, only smaller, cleaner and less threatening. The narration begins, conspiratorially suggestive, as the hen scratches and pecks at the ground. 

The Cornish Game Hen: Nature's perfect murderer.  But unlike the siberian tiger or the three-toed sloth, this remorseless killer is no simple hunter. It eliminates its enemies not by sudden, violent ambush, but through intricately plotted schemes  -and carefully staged assassination. 

Freeze frame. Zoom in on the game-hen as the picture slowly turns red and minor-key violin music begins. 

Tonight on Hidden Enemies, we take you into the Cornish Game Hen's secret world.

The picture cuts to a bald, sun-tanned man in overalls standing in a field. Game hens mill about his feet. A disembodied voice asks - "So you what can you tell us about the Game-hen's methods?"

The man chews his lower lip for a moment, then frowns. "I'm... not sure I understand the question." 

The camera zooms in on the hens. The violin music reaches a brief crescendo. 

Cut to a skinny middle-aged woman in a sweater that's slightly too big for her and unfortunate sweat-pants, sitting on a bench in the park. The disembodied questioner addresses her. 

"So what makes you so sure that a game-hen killed your son?" 

The woman shrugs, and stares at the camera with a kind of wild-eyed wonder at the question. "Well, I got it on video, didn't I?" 

Cut to a video of a man in an expensive red sports-car getting t-boned by a semi-truck at a darkened, tree-lined intersection. Both burst into flames. A small flapping shape hops out of the broken door of the truck. Freeze frame. The image zooms in and the violins screech. It's definitely a bird - and a bird flapping around in the cab would go a long way towards explaining an out-of-control semi...

"Where do you think it learned to drive?"

The woman shakes her head, still looking bewildered. 

"Them game-hens is capable of anything." 

And guide you through the century-long history of their blood-drenched crusade.

Cut to a montage of historical photographs and videos from many different continuums. The JFK assassination. The Hindenburg disaster. The siege of Gondor. The destruction of the original star-ship Enterprise. Luke Skywalker falling from Cloud City. Godzilla crashing through the Japanese Diet building. Each clip has a red circle somewhere in the frame, highlighting a tiny moving shape which is, in every case, too small and blurry to identify. We are clearly intended to believe that these are Cornish Game Hens. 

You'll learn how to protect yourself

Cut back to that guy in the field, with the hens. The music picks up, taking on a galloping, kinetic quality.

"So how does one kill a Cornish Game-Hen?"

The man looks at his hens, who are clucking, and pecking, and doing hen things, then looks back at the camera, grimaces and raises his hands palm upwards in a 'come on, really?' gesture. "They're chickens. Are you seriously asking?"

"Dead serious. People must be warned."
  
And why you should be afraid! 

Cut to a respectable-looking older gentleman, sitting in a library. He's clearly agitated and speaking earnestly as the background music reaches its final peak. "I can prove that Aragorn is a Cornish Game-Hen!" 

Cut to black. The Music stops. 

So stay tuned - or the next victim .... could be you.

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 878787 - The High School Drama Channel - Omniverse Lovely, The Highschool Doki Doki Heartbeat Saga : Chapter 1 (Crash Into Hello! My frozen heart shatters!). Subtitles in painful italics.

We have experienced the most generic anime title sequence in the history of the universe. Cherry blossoms swirled. White sea-birds flew into a boundless sky. Strazio Rockwell, dressed in a high-collared high-school uniform, walked away from the camera into a wasteland sunset. Guu sat in the shade of a single tree in the middle of a green, sunlit field while fluffy white clouds passed overhead. Hiro Protagonist and an extremely bishounen version of Okor Paleblood sat on debris beneath a moonlit sky, gazing manfully into each other's eyes. Jade Harley, floating in space, reached towards the screen in the classic 'take my hand' fashion, palm up, fingers spread. A square-jawed, middle-aged version of Omni wearing a business suit and glasses with a tint stood in an empty white space - possibly the Nexus - with his arms crossed and a knowing smile. Ninjas - you know which ones - ran through twilit forests, dodgins between trees. Tearen Wover, with his back to the screen, stood on a balcony looking out over a city. Literally every character got one of those close-up profile-shots where they're looking away and then they turn towards the viewer and look pleasantly surprised. The dog version of Amaterasu dropped from above onto Skeletor's head.  Add in any number of seemingly random sultry or contemplative shots of Trixie, Kerrigan,  Samus, and Luci wearing school uniforms, all of whom suddenly have cleavage you could lose a cat in.  And finally, we got a rapid upward-motion shot, settling on the sunlit gates of a walled complex of exquisitely maintained school-buildings.
This played the whole time. It's best not to dwell on it, but having sat through that ordeal, we have arrived at the title card. It is, of course, in kanji. The letters are bright green, over a pink tablecloth-print background. 

OMNIVERSE LOVELY HIGH SCHOOL: DOKI DOKI HEARTBEAT SAGA! 

CHAPTER 1: CRASH INTO HELLO! MY FROZEN HEART SHATTERS!

We open with a top down shot of a boy in a school-uniform. His hair is blue, and his skin is extremely pale, and he's wearing a white mask. He's walking along a sidewalk with cherryblossoms swirling overhead. We are treated to some narration, in japanese, naturally.

Hi there -My name is Kopaka, and I'm a first-year high-schuHOOol student. I neve-EV-eveeeeeeeeer...........

Suddenly, the image on the screen distorts, and the narration slows to an unintelligible crawl, little more than bass-register gurgling in the background as the shape of a face appears in the static.

"Hello. Hello? Can anybody hear me! It's a trap! This show, this whole channel is a trap! Stop watching now! It's all part of his plan... you've got to tell someone before - oh no. No! Not now-

The picture distorts even further, and the screen almost seems to flex, writhing and quaking. The face in the static is torn apart by some unseen force. The sound starts peaking, giving a harsh, shackled edge to a cacophony of screaming and laughter, sick, horrible laughter, filled with all of the venom and contempt of a world created by a brilliant child, and left to rot by the mendacious and the blind...

Abruptly, the picture snaps back to normal. Anime-Kopaka has just collided with with a super-busty version of Jade Harley, wearing a high-school uniform version of her Dog-Tier robe, knocking both of them to the ground. 

How was I to know that from that moment, my lackadaisical high-school life was going to change forever?

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 9998766643232323308989 - The  Other Horror Movie Channel - The Secret of Evil ( film presented in its entirety).

The title sequence begins. We're treated to an image of that poster-child for evil, Milton Friedman, as haunting cello music begins to play. Suddenly, the image is ripped down the middle, like a strip being torn from wallpaper, to reveal another image - Benedict Arnold. As the music increases in tempo, that image catches fire, and pieces of it fall away, revealing ancient tabloid headlines regarding Jack the Ripper. These crumble in their turn, disintegrating into to dust and tatters,  to reveal a scattered stack of photographs depicting armies on the march. 

As each new step of the sequence occurs, the name of someone involved in production drifts somewhere near the image. Not just a title sequence, then, but opening credits.

The photographs scatter as the music swells, showing a grainy black-and-white image of crime-scene tape stretched in front of a farmhouse. This image peels off like a sticker, and we're treated to an image of a mushroom cloud - specifically, the one over Hiroshima. This image burns entirely to ashes. As they drift down, the camera pans to follow them, settling on a pile of debris from all this stuff we've seen, and then pans out, changing angle. The collage of ashes, and photographs, and dust, and what-have-you forms the words "The Secret of Evil" each letter an island in a pool of blood. 

Fade to black. 

The movie starts.  A tall, thin, suntanned man, with sunken brown eyes and no hair is seated in a police interview room, squarely in the center of the frame.  His eyebrows are bushy and black. There's two way glass on the wall behind him, the walls are padded, and the floor is tile. He's sitting in an extremely uncomfortable-looking chair, behind a bare metal table.  Florescent lighting, white-tinted-violet, glares down upon him, making his dark suit seem grayer than it is. He stands, ramrod straight, pushing the chair out from the table as he does so, and adjusts his red silk tie.

The man leans forward very slightly, towards the camera. 

"It turns out," he intones, his voice crackling like hailstones on a tomb, "That it's mostly subjective."  

Cut to black. A bass rumble of existential angst fills the speakers. 

The end credits roll. They're an hour and a half long,  and taken up almost entirely by a list of "Philosophical consultants". The caterers are a distant second.

[Gaston]

Channel 1-Official Empire Broadcasting Channel- The Propaganda Hour. Narration in italics, fast end-of-commercial speaking in bolded italics 

A man walks down the street in an obvious attempt at a medieval town replica, though it was obviously fake. Suddenly, he trips on a stone, and falls onto a street, yelping. Suddenly, a large business man in a black and white suit, riding a donkey, runs over him, and he yelps. The screen turns to grey, and freezes on the trampled man's face.
Does this ever happen to you? The screen fades to a picture of the man previously trampled walking down a sidewalk in Coruscant, whistling to himself. Nothing out of the ordinary happens to him; he trips on no rocks, and is trampled by no donkey. Well, then come to Coruscant! We've got no rocks to trip on, no donkeys to trample you, nothing that can hurt you! The man continues walking around Coruscant, greeting aliens, buying produce, all kinds of good things. Some other areas may be dangerous. The screen cuts to a generic fantasy setting, where elves and demons are sharping knives and axes, preparing for battle. But not Coruscant! It cuts back to Coruscant, where elves are there as well as aliens and humans, speaking kindly and talking together.
So come on down to Coruscant! Coruscant not responsible for any damages caused by visits to lower tiers than 4. Enter at your own risk.

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 46690.2 - The Radical Environmentalism Channel - The Lorax: Second Blood (trailer). Gravelly action-film voiceover narration in italics.  

Fade in on a horrific industrial wasteland. The camera pans across mounds of gray, lifeless soil littered with rusted machinery and pools of oily water. In the backround smokestacks loom, half-crumbled and abandoned. A cracked and pitted road plays host to the only vegetation - ashen crabgrass withering in the crumbling tarmac. 

In a world ravaged by one man's greed...  


The camera quick-fades out, and then back in on a hillside covered in tree stumps. We zoom in slowly. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and it begins to rain, filthy ochre-colored drops pattering on the ground.  A single filthy thneed - a fuzzy kind of thing half-way between a set of long-underwear and a mobius-strip - lies abandoned among the wastes. 

And the brutal demise of the Truffula Trees... 

Quick-fade-cut to the same landscape, but earlier. Huge belching steel machines with a frankly improbable number of chainsaws attached to their many sinister robot-arms are gliding over the hillside on ridiculously tiny wheels, cutting down long, slender trees topped by beautiful, dynamic tufts of multi-hued fur. Tiny bear-like creatures flee for their lives in the foreground. 

One extremely.... hairy little man will rise. 

Synth-heavy new-wave music begins playing, fraught with darkly kinetic ambiance. The camera fade-cuts to a single, large tree-stump atop a gray, soot-blasted hill. The stump cracks down the middle, falling open like the shell of an egg. An orange-furred head emerges from within, equipped with a blonde mustache that would make Teddy Roosevelt proud. It's wearing a red bandanna. Its eyes are huge, but other than that and the mustache its face bears a startling resemblance to Sylvester Stallone. The rest of the creature follows in short order. It has no neck, just a pair of broad shoulders crowning a carrot-shaped body with bulging biceps and tiny legs, all one-hundred percent nude and covered in thick orange hair. It's got a bandolier across its chest, and its holding a futuristic-looking pump-action shotgun. 

"MY NAME IS THE LORAX!" it bellows, standing atop its tree-stump, and brandishing its weapon to the heavens. "AND I BRING YOUR DEMISE!" 

His name is the Lorax - we tell you no lies. 

The shotgun fires, and the music speeds up. We're treated to a rapid-fire montage of tension-filled scenes. A stocky old man in a business suit stands in an oppulently-appointed office holding a small burlap bag. "I am the Twiceler, I've stolen these seeds." 

A younger man with a stenographer's notepad stands nearby, beside a potted plant. "To replenish the trees, sir?" 

The man smiles and nods grimly. "So that I can make thneeds!" 

Smash-cut. One of the bear-like creatures from earlier bursts through a door with a wierdly-shaped frame. He's wearing an eye-patch. "The Twiceler has stolen the truffula seeds! And soon he'll make thneeds, the thing everyone needs!" 

The Lorax is sitting in a chair in a dingy bar. The walls are hung with torn thneeds and the stuffed heads of Swomee-Swans.  He spits out a half-smoked cigar and knocks back a tumbler of whiskey. "You're a barbaloot, Jim, so remember your creed. You of all people know that nobody needs thneeds!" 

Cut to the Twiceler's office. He slams his hand on the desk. "Somebody's clogging the outtake valves up! We're knee-deep in gloop and in shluppity-shlup!" 

"They say it's the Lorax," says his assisstant, looking nervous. "He'll cut us off at the knees!" 

"The who?" says the Twiceler, grimacing and sitting back in his chair. The camera cuts to the enormous mahogany door of the office as it suddenly explodes inward - the Lorax is standing there holding a grenade-launcher. 

"The Lorax, you bastard! I Kill For the Trees!" 

He fires the grenade launcher straight at the camera. The ensuing explosion blasts a title-card onto the screenn, backlit by crackling flames. "THE LORAX: SECOND BLOOD"


THE LORAX - SECOND BLOOD!
 
Rated-NC-17 -For-graphic-violence-and-sexuality-this-film-has-been-deemed-subversive-by-the-Imperial-Film-Ratings-and-Censorship-Board-Playing-now-at-select-theaters-viewers-may-be-subject-to-arrest-and-interrogation-by-authorized-Imperial-authorities.

[King Ghidorah]

Chanel 7 - The Celebrity News Channel - Prime Time (Episode 1,098): Guest - 1 Bling.  Phlegmy coughing in bold italics. 

Fade in on a talk-show set, with a holographic matte-painting of Tier 4 Coruscant at night as a backdrop. An enormous grey-skinned hominid is sitting behind a polished black desk which is slightly too small, hands as large as snow-shovels folded in front of him. His conservative double-breasted tweed suit (or perhaps quadruple-breasted, considering his chest is as wide as a Mack-truck) is tailored to allow the clusters of jagged bone-white spikes that jut a full two feet from each of his shoulders and protrude from his elbows to breath without ruining his clothing. Smaller bone spurs adorn his jawline, giving the impression of a beard, crown his knuckles and armor his brow-ridge. His stringy silver hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail. He has no lips, nor ears - just small clusters of yet more bone spikes, and his face is twisted in a perpetual razor-toothed scowl.

"Hello," he booms, staring at the camera with eyes like hot coals, "and Welcome back to Prime Time. For those of you just joining us, I'm your host, Armando Graydon." 

From the way his voice drops, his nose wrinkles and his eyes flare, we get the distinct impression he does not like this name, and it is perhaps an alias chosen by the producers. 

"Our special guest this evening is a noted author, respected spiritual guru, and controversial hip-hop impressarrio - let's give a big Tier-4 welcome," he says his voice practically dripping with anger and disgust as he sweeps a pointing finger towards stage-left, "to...1 Bling!"

An emaciated creature hobbles onto the stage, alternately tottering and knuckle-walking on arms that are too long for him. His skin is grey and wrinkled, his features, although human, are exaggerated - puffy lips, enormous ears, wide, staring yellow eyes - and his feet are so large as to be almost cumbersome. He's wearing a pair of black leather jeans that are one size too large for him, an abundance of golden rings adorned with elvish script (on both fingers and toes - and one on a gold chain around his neck), and a doo-rag with the Eye of Sauron airbrushed on. He grins - displaying what looks to be a fortune in gold teeth - and waves enthusiastically as he hobbles across the black-carpeted set, eventually scuttling like a monkey up onto a red leather arm-chair beside Armando's desk. 

The studio audience cheers wildly. Several lacy women's underthings sail across the set.  

Armando turns to 1 Bling, whose entire body is the size of just one of his pectorals, visibly hiding his revulsion. The cheering dies down.

"You disgust me, and I would kill you if I thought it worth my time." he says. 

The audience laughs. Regular viewers know that this is how Armando greets all of his guests. 

1 Bling nods, still smiling. "Oh, you don't want kill Smeagol," he says, his voice thin and reedy, "Without Smeagol, Armando can't fill his timeslot."
  
Armano sighs like the air escaping from a crashing zeppelin. "I suppose that's true, so we may as well talk about your pointless career. There have been rumors that following the release of your latest album: Filthy Hobbit Sez, you're going to be parting ways with Oruk-Hai Records. Your - and I'm going to use this term loosely - thoughts?"

1 Bling's eyes narrow, and he stands up, looking even more like a monkey as he perches on the chair, with his knobbly knees and perpetual crouch. "Nasty producers! Tricksy producers! They tried to cheat Smeagol, tried to tricks us, but we were too clever! They thought that we were stupid, tried to renegotiate Smeagol's contract, but we dangled them from the penthouse balcony by their ankleses and then they were not so smug!"

1 Bling is frothing at the mouth and breathing quite hard at this point. Armando stares. He has no lips, so he can't really snarl, but his teeth are grinding in a way that suggests he can't quite believe this shit.

"... and then what happened?" 

The emaciated rapper's intensity collapses into a sudden icy, strangely well spoken calm. He stares at his reflection in Armando's shiny desk. "You cannot tell them what we did, Smeagol. We can pay the fines, but The Empire is fickle. Silence is your friend. Say nothing, and your money can make it go away."

1 Bling stares into space for a moment longer, then has a coughing fit, and returns to his former self. "Gollum, Gollum... Smeagol's lawyer advises against answering that question. Yes, Smeagol will not answer, oh no, or the nasty police-men will come and takes us. They will take the Preciousssss..." 

He clutches the ring that he wears on the chain around his neck and holds it covetously in front of his face with both hands, furtively glancing at Armando as though he expects him to try and steal it.

Armando shakes his head. "Well. Every second I spend on the air with you embarrasses us both, and I've got little enough dignity to to spare these days."

The host returns his attention to the camera, his voice buzzing and rumbling like a freight-train filled with locusts, more distorted than it was before. 

"This is Armando Graydon. My guest has been 1 Bling - the Album is Filthy Hobbit Sez; go and buy it, you weak, pathetic animals. Prime Time will return after these messages." 

He clenches one enormous fist and pulls it towards him in a classic gesture of power and malice. The sleeve of his suits tears very slightly at the seams.

"And someday, I will have my revenge."

[King Ghidorah]

Channel ? - Silent Hill Public Access - The Cecil Thomas Municipal Politics and Local News Power-Hour (episode ?). 

 
Assuming anyone could successfully tune into this broadcast, this is what they would see:

 A continuous shot, picture quality slightly grainy, of a basement room lit in shades of burnt sienna by a single flickering overhead bulb. The wallpaper is yellow and mildewed, and the carpet resembles the crust on a jar full of old milk. There is a dead ficus tree occupying a white plastic pot in one corner. A poster advertising the original Rageface film is tacked to the wall nearby, beside an Ikea bookshelf loaded with impressive looking (but in quite poor condition) texts on civics, economics, and the philosophy of government. An overstuffed burgundy armchair occupies the center of the floor. 

There is a man in the chair. He is young, and slightly fat, but his skin sags in a way that suggests he was once much fatter. His hair and beard have the look of not having been cut or washed in a very long time. This man is wearing a flannel work-shirt with the buttons open in the front, allowing us a glimpse of a stained t-shirt with a faded insignia over the breast, now indecipherable. There is a sawed-off shotgun dangling loosely in his right hand. A pile of flash-cards lie scattered on the floor nearby, beside a smashed easel and a discarded laptop computer. Occasionally he blinks, or scratches chin. Otherwise, he doesn't move. 

After several minutes a band of static crawls across the screen, like a damaged frame on an old VHS. A moment later the man starts talking, although his slack-jawed expression doesn't change; He doesn't even seem to realize he's doing it.

"Hey neighbors", he says, his enthusiastic tones entirely at odds with his vacant eyes, "and welcome back to the Municipal Politics and Local News Power-Hour. The sky is burning, and I see your face in the flames. I look into the shell of my broken camera and all that's inside is the stares of ten-thousand hollow eyes: an audience of counterfeit souls transfixed by dead air. What are our leading citizens planning on doing about this?" 
 
He stops abruptly, staring unblinkingly into the overhead bulb for several seconds. The picture fuzzes, and in the frames between the bands of static the chair in the center of the room is occupied by a different person entirely. They're old and skinny dressed only in rags, dripping wet. The carpet looks moist, and there's a red metal gas-can on the floor instead of a laptop. The picture clears. Cecil continues talking.

"I'm not going to stand for it. Who do they think they are telling use we can't leave our own homes! If you're as angry about this as I am, and I know that you are, then let them know we're onto them. Write your councilman. Call the Mayor's office. Dig a hole - you'll finding nothing down there except more city - Silent Hill, all the way down."

The bands of static roll across the screen once more, providing a glimpse of a version of Cecil's basement which has been gutted by fire. There are pieces of a department store mannequin scattered among the ashes - and the ficus tree has been replaced in its now-melted planter by a healthy specimens.

When the picture transitions back, Cecil turns his head, looking directly at the camera. One of his eyes slowly rolls back in his head. "This city's leading citizens need to stand up and take responsibility for the economy, our rights, and for the happiness of our taxpaying townsfolk. Kill me. They need to know that we're not going to take this kind of treatment anymore. This has happened before. Hell. Thirty dollars for a dog-license?" 

Jerkily, as though he's forgotten how and is having to figure it out as he goes, Cecil stands up from his chair and shambles over to the bookshelf. The shotgun slips, forgotten, out of his hand. There's a loud click when it hits the floor, but no shot. The man fumbles with the battered books, pulling one off the shelf, but failing to keep a hold. It thumps dustily on the carpet, but he doesn't seem to notice, turning back to the camera and waving his hand as though he were gripping a treasured volume with fervent gusto. 

"According to John Locke, the dreamer is both creator and destroyer. Omni dreams the universe, and when he wakes the dream ends. The macroeconomic implications for our situation are obvious: we're all spiritual cannibals, dreams devouring dreams. It's inside of you already. To donate, call the number on the back of your eyelids, and with your help we'll be able to cause some real change in this town. This has happened before." 

He returns to his armchair, sitting down unsteadily, and folds his hands in his lap. He immediately bursts into flames, burning silently. His jaw sloughs off and bounces on the floor. Somewhere, an air-raid siren begins to sound, and the walls and floor burn away, revealing a tresselwork of rusted iron. Throughout, the armchair remains bizarrely pristine, even as its burning occupant is entangled by barbed wire. The room is rapidly filling with smoke, obscuring our view.

"This has been the Municipal Politics and Local News Power-Hour. Time isn't real. I'm your host. Cecil Cecil. Until Thomas, remember that its all your fault. Paid for by the Silent Hill Tourism Development Bureau." 

"We'll see you soon."

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 199,79,797 - The Stupidity Channel - Probably Doomed (episode 98): The Tarrasque, and other beasts.  

 

We fade in on a pair of men, filmed from the rear, walking down a very gloomy road in a very gloomy place. They're both dark-haired and young, dressed in preppy wind-breakers and dungaree shorts with high-top sneakers. One of them is wearing a sport-visor, and has slightly larger ears. The other has a flattop haircut. They both have on sunglasses in spite of the gloomy weather. The sky overhead is grey, the grass all around is greenish-grey, and the dirt on the road is brownish-grey. The camera, evidently held by a third man, wobbles and shakes as it follows them. 

The one in the visor is talking to the other guy in hushed tones, muttering things like "you're sure it's gonna be here man?" and getting replies like "yeah bro I'm positive." It's a windy day and the mic pickup is a little bit oversensitive, so we're getting that vague breathy rustling sound which arises from hand-held camcorders when used outdoors.  After about ten seconds he turns to face the camera, now walking backwards. He has a grin on his face that says he either just got married or he's about to get laid. "Hey! MY people! Welcome to Probably Doomed. I'm Mitch, and this is my boy Archibald - Archy if you're dirty."

He jerks his thumb at the other young man, who looks over his shoulder at the camera and says, "You don't know anybody dirty enough to call me Archy and get away with it Mitch," but he's smiling almost as wide as his partner. 

Mitch laughs. "You're probably right dude. Anyway, we've got a hell of a show today. For those of you that aren't familiar with our fine program, I'm immortal, and I do stupid shit. Like, fatally stupid shit - and I do it for your entertainment! You sick fucking animals." 

He takes off his sunglasses and stares at the camera for a moment, and the look on his face is haunting. It contains all of the pain and trauma of dozens, if not hundreds of horrifying and frequently undignified deaths. It's the face of a man gazing in judgement at God from the slopes of hell. 

Then he smiles again and its like flipping a light switch - all the stress-lines and shadows disappear. One way or the other, he must be an incredibly talented actor. He puts his sunglasses back on. "Naaaah, I'm just messing with ya. What's gonna kill me today, Archibald?"

Archibald glances over his shoulder again and points ahead of them, to where the road disappears over the crest of a hill. "It's just over that ridge, bro." He reaches into the pocket of his windbreaker and pulls out an olivewood cheese-knife (suitable for cutting fine cheeses, and nothing else), which he hands to Mitch. "Here, you're gonna need this." 

Mitch, still walking backwards, holds up the cheese knife for the camera and puts on a Serious Business face. "Olivewood cheese-knife. Weapon of Kings." he says. "Yeah, I know what it is. I eat fine cheeses - Fuckin' epicurean up in here. So, now that I'm strapped, let's see what we got."  

Cresting the top of the hill, both men, as well as the viewing audience, are treated to a view of horror. About a quarter-mile away, a path of utter destruction has been carved through a deciduous forest by an enormous earth-toned creature, a lumbering mass of teeth, spikes and armor plating easily the size of a house. Each individual claw on of its wicked talons is the size of a man, and the forest of bony protrusions lining its armored shell are just as large, and viciously curved. It's mouth is large enough to swallow a cart-horse whole, and lined with a triple-row of serrated teeth. It howls, like a steam engine exploding in a bell-factory, and the sound cuts out. The picture moves frantically for a couple of seconds, and then skips. The monster is further away now, and Mitch and Archy are crouching instead of standing, but the camera is steady again and the sound is back.

"Sorry about that," says Mitch, talking too loudly in the manner of a person with severe tinnitus. "Asshole monster fried our mics." He turns to his partner. "What is this thing?"  

"It's the Tarrasque, bro." says Archibald. "It's a straight-up Beast of Legend. You're gonna fight it." 

"With the Cheese-knife?" asks Mitch.

Archibald nods. "With the motherfuckin' cheese-knife."

"What are my chances?"

"Probably Doomed."

"Bitchin'." says Mitch. He stands up and turns to the camera. "Make sure you get this!"

Mitch takes off his sunglasses and his jacket leaving him in an undershirt and dungarees, raises the cheese knife over his head, and takes a deep, deep breath. Then, he runs screaming down the hill towards the forest. It takes him a couple of minutes, and he has to pause for breath a few times, but eventually we see a tiny, shirtless figure emerge into the clearing that surrounds the beasts mindless rampage, run up to the monster, and begin doinking it in the ankle with something too small to see at this distance - presumably the cheese-knife. 

The Tarrasque turns around with unnatural agility for a beast its size, knocking over trees with its tail, and swallows him whole. The clack of its teeth slamming together is audible, even from this distance, and both Archibald and the cameraman wince and give sympathetic "OOOOoooohhh"s.  

Archibald faces the camera. "Well, that was predictable - but it's probably not the only thing that you're gonna see eat my main man today. We'll back after the break! Show some love - stick around!"

[King Ghidorah]

Channel 719 - The Pork Channel - Night of the Wild Boar (Cold Open). Title Card in Bold Purple

We are looking at the back of a skinny, clean cut young man in a polo shirt and khaki slacks standing on the white linoleum concourse of the meats isle of a supermarket. His black hair is combed, and his brown suede shoes look new. A red plastic grocery basket with a black handle dangles from his hand, containing a bottle of milk, some green onions, and various cans. The man is facing a row of wall-mounted refrigerator-cabinets with glass-fronted doors bordered by black plastic. They contain white wire-mesh shelves furnished with various organically-produced meats in sealed plastic packages bearing the logos of various farms, labeled by section with yellow price-stickers. Everything is eerily quiet.

The man opens the door in front of him and reaches towards the highest shelf for a package of premium bacon. Off-screen, something grumbles and snorts. There's a suggestion of froth in that sound, and of great size. The man freezes. The camera cuts to his face, which is as skinny as the rest of him and has a sparse mustache. His eyes shift to his right. 

The camera cuts to a side-view , positioned at shoulder-height about ten feet to the man's left. We are now looking down the aisle. There is the man, with his arm extended, clutching its bacony prize, frozen apprehensively half-way between himself and the open refrigerator door. A row of waist-high freezer-bins runs down the center of the aisle, dividing it into two lanes, only one of which we can really see. They are piled full of plastic-wrapped chicken breasts, frozen fish, and various cheap cuts of meat. A forest of yellow paper signs on wooden sticks emerges from the bins, naming the meats and giving their prices. Purplish florescent bulbs line the unfurnished ceiling.

The aisle appears to go on forever. There are no other customers. And standing in the middle of the lane, not twenty feet beyond our nameless protagonist, is a wild boar. 

The pig is huge - three feet tall at the shoulder, as wide as it is tall, and at least five feet long. It's skin is gray and covered with a thick coat of bristles as thick as copper wire. A crest of red hair runs down the center of its muscular back from the top of its head, and its yellowed tusks are so long, thick and pointy that they look like they could be used to mine coal.  Its snout twitches ceaselessly, but its black piggy eyes are laser-focused on the sole human being in sight. 

The camera cuts to a closer shot of just the pig. It shuffles its trotters, and knots of porcine sinew can be seen shifting beneath its skin - this is not a fat animal, its just really, really big. The pig's feet clack on the linoleum, and it grumbles angrily.

We cut back to our original perspective,  facing the wall of refrigerators, but a wider shot, containing both the man and the pig. The heaps of meats with the signs sticking out of them are just visible at the bottom of the screen, though they're in the near-foreground and out of focus. 

The man slowly turns his head to look at the pig, and slowly begins to put the bacon back on the shelf, not making any sudden moves. 

The pig bellows like the air-brakes on a piece of heavy machinery shaking apart from rust and improper maintenance. The man drops his bacon, and his grocery-basket, and bolts. 

We cut to a shallow-angle overhead view as our hero runs for all he's worth. Cans, green onions and milk spill across the floor where he dropped his intended purchases. The porcine avenger grunts purposefully and runs after him. 

New shot. A row of checkout counters appear in the middle-distance - countertops equipped with little black conveyor belts in front of dirty off-white cash-registers feeding into scuffed chrome bagging stations. Wire magazine and candy racks and glass-fronted black mini-fridges filled with coca-cola products delineate the individual checkout aisles. Beyond them lie an impenetrable tange of supermarket shelving, mostly bare. Same linoleum floor, same stark overhead lighting. Bored-looking teenagers in aprons are milling around behind the registers, doing nothing productive. There are no customers.

The sound of pounding feet slapping against the tile slowly rises from somwhere in the distance, getting louder as it grows closer. One-by-one the bored register-jockeys stop their conversations, and their magazine-browsing, and their making out, and turn to look towards the unseen depths of the store. 

The man from earlier erupts from between two rows of shelving, wild-eyed and sweat-stained, his short-cropped hair sticking out in all directions and pant-legs torn, and crashes into a magazine rack, sending the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News fountaining into the air alongside dog-eared copies of Time, Newsweek and Life Magazine. He bounces off, looks around frantically, and charges between two checkout counters, past the edge of the entry foyer and out of the shot. We hear the thud of him hitting the front door, the groaning hiss as the automatic doors opens for him a couple of moments later, and the pounding of his feet as he runs out into the parking lot. 

No wild boar appears. 

The store employees stare in the direction of their only customer's flight. One of them says, "What the hell was that about?" 

Smash-cut to title card, a black-screen with flickering purple text, set to roaring violins and the grunting of a pig. 

NIGHT OF THE WILD BOAR

[China]

Channel 178,334,753 - The Omnitoons Channel - Ghi-Dora-h the Explorer (episode 1): It's a Prime Thing  

“Woah! Where am I!?” Ghi-Dora-h cries as she falls to her knees beside a pretty little fountain, in the centre of a big, white land.

“And why am I so small? The last thing I remember, I was pounding civilisations into dust and callously cutting short billions of lives... how did I go from that to being a seven-year-old Mexican girl?” Ghi-Dora-h shakes her heads and sighs, climbing back to her feet.

*Cue laugh track.*

“If only I had someone to help me understand this strange place... oh! I know! I just had this crazy dream about an albino boy who gave me a magic ball and told me I could use it to make anything I wanted! Let's try that now! I should make a friendly companion to help me out!”

Ghi-Dora-h holds out her hands in front of her and a big, brightly coloured bubble appears, along with a clock in the bottom of the screen. The minute hand moves quickly, as though to indicate that the summoning has taken several minutes, even though actually only a few seconds have passed. When it stops moving, the bubble bursts and the clock vanishes a moment later. Where the bubble had been now stands a blue monkey in red boots.

“Wow, it's an animal! But what kind of animal is that? Do you know?” Ghi-Dora-h stares silently into the camera for a few seconds.

“Gracias!” she then suddenly says, as though having gotten a response from a viewer, “This animal is called a 'monkey'!”

“Do you have a name, little monkey?” she then asks, looking at her new friend.

“Yes, I do!” he responds cheerfully, “My name is Boots, because I have these big, red boots!”

“That's great! It's nice to meet you, Boots! My name is Ghi-Dora-h!” Ghi-Dora-h says, and the two shake hands, “Will you help me to find out more about this strange place?”

“Of course I will, Ghi-Dora-h!” Boots replies, “But I don't know any more than you, so whatever should we do?”

“Hmm...” Ghi-Dora-h seems lost in thought for a moment, “I know! Why don't we ask someone! There is bound to be a friendly face around here somewhere, and the sooner we find out what is going on, the sooner I can return to my true form and brutally rend the flesh from the bones of every living thing on this accursed world!”

*Cue laugh track.*

“You are right Ghi-Dora-h, that is a brilliant idea!” says Boots cheerfully, not clarifying whether he means asking for help or conducting genocide.

The two walk along the screen for a few seconds, before encountering an adult in black and white armour. The helmet he wears is mostly white, but has a curved black line on it, as well as two black lenses over the eyes, which make it look like a smiley face.

“Hello there little girl,” the figure greets Ghi-Dora-h, “I am a friendly stormtrooper, and I am happy to help any new Primes.”

“Wow, that was fast, wasn't it, Boots!?” Ghi-Dora-h exclaims.

“Yes, it was, Ghi-Dora-h!” Boots agrees.

“But what is a Prime, Mr Stormtrooper?” Ghi-Dora-h asks.

“A Prime is someone very lucky!” the stormtrooper responds enthusiastically, “They are chosen by Omni himself, and get special Powers as a reward. There are some side effects, though, like losing most of the power they had before coming here, but that isn't so bad! Being able to come back from the dead surely makes up for it, after all!”

“What!?” Ghi-Dora-h growls angrily, lightning crackling in her three, dragon-like heads, “How can you say that it is not so bad!? I was-”

She pauses suddenly, “Wait. Did you say 'come back from the dead'?”

Once again, Ghi-Dora-h turns to face the camera, “Did I hear Mr Stormtrooper right? I thought he said 'come back from the dead'! Did you hear that too?”

She waits for a few moments to pass.

“Gracias! I knew that was what he had said!”

“Yes, it is true,” the stormtrooper tells her once more, nodding his head to reinforce the point, “Omni brings all Primes back to life one week after they die. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Yes, I would!” Ghi-Dora-h responds enthusiastically. In response, the stormtrooper takes out a blaster rifle seemingly from nowhere and shoots her in the chest. Ghi-Dora-h's corpse collapses unceremoniously, her blank, lifeless eyes staring ahead emptily as blood soaks her t-shirt and pools on the ground beneath her.

“Oh no! What have you done!?” Boots cries in horror as he stares at the little girl's cadaver.

“Do not worry, Boots,” the stormtrooper says, as cheerfully as ever, “We just need to wait one week and Ghi-Dora-h will return to life at the fountain.”

“But I don't know how long a week is!” Boots replies in a panic.

“Oh no, this is bad.” the stormtrooper says sadly, shaking his head whilst the smile on his helmet turns upside down, “We must find out, or else we will not know how long to wait. Do you know how many days are in one week?”

Both the stormtrooper and Boots turn to look expectantly at the viewer and wait a few seconds.

“Well done.” the stormtrooper replies, smiling once more, at the same moment that Boots leaps up into the air and screams 'Gracias!', as if to confirm that he is also capable of speaking Spanish, “We now know that there are seven days in a week, so let's wait here for seven days, until Ghi-Dora-h comes back to life.”

The stormtrooper holds up a calendar which he has just pulled out of thin air. The calendar expands to fill the entire screen. Some of the days have large, red crosses through them, making it appear that the month is already part-way through.

“Now let's all count to seven together!” Boots' voice says happily, and then his and the stormtrooper's voices both do just that, with an additional cross being drawn through a day with each number. After 'seven', they finally stop and the view zooms out to show the stormtrooper holding the calendar, standing with Boots right beside the fountain, with Ghi-Dora-h's body nowhere in sight.

Just as the stormtrooper tucks away the calendar behind his back, a colourful bubble appears and then pops, revealing Ghi-Dora-h, as good as new.

“Wow, Mr Stormtrooper, that was amazing!” she exclaims, “Is there more you can teach us?”

“Of course!” all three turn to face the viewer before the stormtrooper continues, “Join us next time, kids, when Boots helps us demonstrate the permanency of death for non-Primes and other key differences between the Übermensch and mere Secondaries!”

They all wave cheerfully at the camera for a few seconds, before the picture vanishes and the credits roll, as a cheerful little song plays.

Ghi-Dora-h! Boots!
Come on, Dora!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h, let's go!

Ghi-Dora, Dora, Dora-h the explorer!
(Dora)
Who's that super cool exploradora, Dora!
Need your help!

Grab your backpack, let's go!
Jump in, vamonos!
You can lead the way!
Hey! Hey!
Ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-Dora-h!

Stormy no shooting!
Stormy no shooting!
(Oh man)

Ghi-Dora-h the explorer!
Ghi-Dora-h! Boots!
Come on, Dora!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h!
Ghi-ghi-ghi-ghi-Dora-h, let's go!

Ghi-Dora, Dora, Dora-h the explorer!
Ghi-Dora-h!