I’d like to begin another Mystery Science Theater 3000 fanfic summoned from the murky depths of the late 90s here. It’s set in the Reboot universe. Reboot is a show I never watched regularly. This isn’t a mark against the show. I was just at a place in the 90s when I had stopped picking up many new shows. I’m pretty much still there.
Editorial notes: I’ve obscured the author’s name for this story, Breaking the Barriers. This is because the fanfic was a self-insertion piece, putting a version of the author in as protagonist. Carrie L— volunteered this fanfic to the Web Site Number Nine Dibs List, as I recall. (I apologize if I have remembered how I came to this piece wrong.) And did enjoy the MiSTing and thought I treated it, and her character, fairly. But that was twenty years ago, and people’s views of themselves and their creative works change.
So I grant someone might work out the identity of the author from the clues available. But I can at least make it a little harder to do. Should the author happen to have an opinion about this reprinting — including wanting it taken down — please contact me, in a screened comment if need be, and I’ll act accordingly.
When I wrote this instead of my thesis, back around 2002, I was unaware of Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire. Nor did I know of Santa’s Village in Jefferson, New Hampshire. Nor of Story Land in Glen, New Hampshire. If I had been, the Stuff For New Hampshire sketch would have been very different, I assure you. As you maybe guessed, it was based on a road trip I took once. I think the address specified “Suite 12” because that was my apartment number at the time. Meanwhile, please take care to not cut yourself on the sharp edge of my joke about the many editions of Monopoly, which I believe were all ones I had seen on store shelves when this was written.
[ OPENING SEQUENCE ]
[ 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. ]
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE DESK. CROW and TOM stand behind the desk; a science fair project-style folding board with a map of New Hampshire stands by CROW’s side. ]
CROW: Good evening. Tom Servo and I, Crow T. Robot, speak to you on behalf of one of the Republic’s most needy states. As becomes obvious on considering or trying to drive across the state, the horrible truth is:
TOM: New Hampshire doesn’t have enough stuff in it. There are the small antiques stores that infest every square mile of New England, plenty of places to get maple syrup, plus some gas stations that are out of gas and won’t let you use the rest rooms, and that’s about it.
CROW: Compared to such exciting and dynamic states as Massachusetts, home to the Professional Basketball Hall of Fame, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and the Mount Greylock Expeditionary Force, loyal sons of New Hampshire can only look despairingly at their empty state.
TOM: Some naive people may assert New Hampshire is no worse off than nearby Vermont. Not so! Those in Vermont can partake of the benefits of being one of the four states to have been independent nations before joining the Union, such as the Hemmings Motor News (Full-Service) Gas Station, and the northernmost battle site of the U.S. Civil War.
CROW: [ Leadingly curious ] How’s that, Tom?
TOM: Yes, in 1864 Confederate soldiers descended from Canada to seize Saint Albans. They left three days later, taking with them some lovely antiques and fine maple syrup, and leaving Vermont with yet another piece of the rich tapestry of a history not shared by New Hampshire.
CROW: Others might argue states like Wisconsin deserve attention first. Not so! Oh, sure, Wisconsin has lots of empty space too, but its residents can enjoy cultural attractions like The House On The Rock, Tommy Bartlett’s Water Show, the actual filming locations of "The Giant Spider Invasion," and convenient access to Escanaba, Michigan.
TOM: But what have our poor New Hampshire…olo..gists got to look forward to, except catching a peek at Brattleboro, Vermont? That’s no future for the proud residents of an upstanding state, and it’s no future for New Hampshire either.
[ JOEL, carrying another sheet of cardboard, and GYPSY, enter, and listen aghast at what CROW and TOM are saying. ]
CROW: So if you’ve got any extra stuff — a museum, a potato chip collection, a cultural heritage, an Interstate, heck, a strip mall would do — please, donate it to the cause.
TOM: Send your extra stuff to:
[ CAMBOT puts the address on screen ]
Stuff for New Hampshire
1788 New Hampshire Boulevard, Suite 12
New Hampshireopolis, New Hampshire 01173
TOM: Thank you, won’t you?
JOEL: [ Startling, scaring TOM and CROW ] Thomas! Crow! I’m shocked at you both!
GYPSY: You knew we were going to do the — [ JOEL reveals his cardboard as a cutout of Nebraska ] — Stuff for Nebraska appeal!
JOEL: Yeah, guys, show a little consideration!
TOM: Uh, gosh, well, you know, we, uh …
CROW: [ As JOEL and GYPSY approach them ] Yeah, uh, we …
[ GYPSY pushes over their New Hampshire display ]
CROW, TOM: [ Dutifully ] We’re sorry.
MAGIC VOICE: Commercial sign in ten seconds.
JOEL: That’s more like it. And you two won’t ever do that again?
TOM: We didn’t say we *learned* anything, Joel, just that we’re sorry.
GYPSY: Get them!
[ TOM and CROW dash off to the sides of the screen as COMMERCIAL SIGN flashes. ]
JOEL: [ Giving chase, tapping COMMERCIAL SIGN ] We’ll be right back!
[ COMMERCIALS ]
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE DESK. CROW, JOEL, TOM, and GYPSY are tossing out cardboard cutouts of various states. JOEL holds a cutout of Indiana. ]
CROW: Indiana.
TOM: Farmer’s Market in Shipshewana.
GYPSY: [ As JOEL tosses out Indiana, picks up Colorado. ] Colorado.
CROW: Setting for "Mork and Mindy." [ JOEL tosses off Colorado, picks up Missouri. ]
GYPSY: Represented in both the Union and Confederate Congresses during the Civil War.
CROW: [ As JOEL tosses off Missouri, picks up Delaware. ] Actually has a land border with New Jersey.
JOEL: New Jersey, then?
TOM: The Turnpike’s Richard Stockton Service Plaza is named for the only signer to later repudiate the Declaration of Independence.
[ MADS SIGN flashes ]
JOEL: Oh, wait. Goober and the Ghost Chasers are calling.
[ JOEL taps MADS SIGN ]
[ DEEP 13. A steel girder is in the background, several feet off the ground; after a beat, DR. FORRESTER pokes his head into frame. ]
DR. F:Hello, Casper. Space Angels. Breakfast cereal: it’s not just for breakfast anymore, but it mostly is. Nevertheless, it offers our invention exchange for this week.
FRANK: [ Off-screen ] You noticed how the last Cheerios in the bowl stick together?
DR. F: Sure, we all have. And we realized the great potential if this adhesive power could be harnessed for non-grain applications.
FRANK: [ Off-screen ] So we went to work trying to reproduce Cheerio adhesion in a portable and easily applied liquid or gel form.
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. As above. ]
TOM: So you’ve got a demonstration for us?
[ DEEP 13. As above. ]
DR. F: Well …
[ DR. FORRESTER shuffles around, clumsily, revealing that across his back TV’s FRANK is stuck, at an odd angle, his back to DR. FORRESTER’s back, his arm twisted to fit behind DR. FORRESTER’s shoulders and head. ]
FRANK: We’re working the bugs out.
DR. F: [ Shuffling back around ] Your turn.
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE DESK. JOEL is at the desk, putting a large thimble over TOM’s dome. GYPSY has wheels and a racecar front on her head. CROW has a papier mache top hat on. On the desk is a Monopoly board and the associated clutter. ]
JOEL: Our invention this week begins with the provocative question: What do Singapore, Betty Boop, the original six pro hockey teams, and the dot-com industry have in common? One great theme.
TOM: All these nouns have all been turned into editions of the classic Parker Brothers board game, Monopoly.
GYPSY: Monopoly has dozens of licensed theme variations.
JOEL: From cities, to Marvel comics, to Major League Baseball.
CROW:So we unite them all with a hopefully soon-to-be-licensed variant:
[ JOEL holds the board up ]
JOEL: The Monopoly Edition edition of Monopoly!
TOM: Tired of Saint Charles Place? Try buying and building up the National Geographic Mountaineering Edition. That dowdy old green color block? Now it’s I Love Lucy, Star Trek, and The Simpsons.
CROW: Free Parking becomes the concept of landing on somebody else’s hotel without their noticing.
GYPSY: Those old railroads? Now they’re the Standard Edition set; the Monopoly set you lost when you were twelve; the set with two checkers, a pawn, and a piece from Sorry replacing missing tokens; and the set that’s hidden under the couch at Grandma’s.
JOEL: It’s an exciting new twist on a classic game, and one we hope will delight the world. What do you think, sirs?
[ DEEP 13. TV’s FRANK is facing forward now, DR. FORRESTER stuck turned away. ]
FRANK: Joel, I think you’re going to delight in this week’s experiment. For a change, it’s *fan fiction* where the author puts a version of herself into the story, and soon wins the hearts of all the show’s characters, heroes and villains alike.
[ They turn around again, showing DR. FORRESTER. ]
DR. F: Your target for tonight is… Reboot: Breaking the Barriers by Canada’s own Carrie L—.
[ They turn around again, showing TV’s FRANK. ]
FRANK: Good luck breaking on through to the other side!
[ SATELLITE OF LOVE DESK. GYPSY, CROW, JOEL, and TOM are beginning to play the Monopoly edition. ]
TOM: I wanna be the thimble.
JOEL: You are the thimble.
CROW: Are we gonna play where you get cash for landing on Free Parking?
GYPSY: No, we’re playing the basic rules.
TOM: Can we make investment trusts with the banker?
JOEL: No, it’s just the plain old rules.
CROW: Do we have to go around the board once before buying property?
GYPSY: No, we’re just playing the real —
[ MOVIE SIGN goes off ]
ALL: Aaaah! We got movie sign!
CROW: I wanna be the racecar!
[ 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. ]
[ THEATER. ALL file in. ]
> Breaking the Barriers
CROW: Somebody get the Krazy Glue.
TOM: Or the Cheerios.
> By Carrie L—
>
> Blinking and rubbing her eyes,
TOM: An elderly Samantha Stevens tries to work her magic again.
> Carrie leaned back in her
> chair.
JOEL: If she leans too far she’ll fall in Yosemite Sam’s trap.
TOM: He’s going to get rid of her and make it look like an accident.
> She had been sitting in front of her computer for hours now.
CROW: Gina Smith, the early years.
> "Boy," she thought, "there sure is alot of things to look at on the
> ‘Net. I could be here forever!"
JOEL: "I could be here forever" — it’s foreshadowing! We never get foreshadowing!
> Reaching up, she rubbed the back of
> her neck,
TOM: I hope she’s not looking for the parachute release cord.
> trying to get rid of the kinks that were forming. Then,
> suddenly, her screen flashed a blue color
JOEL: I think she’s being visited by Jaga.
> and she got an "Error 2001"
TOM: A pretty routine odyssey.
> message. "Error 2001?" she said, "Fatal error,
CROW: They’re going to have to call off finding the monolith?
> system destabylizing,
JOEL: But feeling better about itself.
> auto-transport device activated?" she read aloud, "What the heck is an
> auto-transport device?"
TOM: Isn’t that when Amtrak takes you and your car down to Florida?
>
> Suddenly, the screen began to flash a bright white light
CROW: Oh, somebody’s poking random numbers into 53281 again.
> and
> she felt herself being lifted off her seat.
JOEL: I hope she drives the villains crazy, ’cause she’s a lunatic.
> She watched in horror and
> surprise as her feet began to pass through her screen into,
TOM: This is the technology that let Deep Space Nine appear in the tribbles episode.
> who knows
> what? With a scream of terror,
JOEL: Scream.
ALL: [ Halfheartedly ] Aaah.
> she was pulled into her computer and
> everything went black.
JOEL: You suppose this would’ve happend if Carrie had a surge protector?
>
> * * * * * * * *
> * * *
CROW: Hey, isn’t that one of the barriers there?
>
> Part Two
>
> Carrie felt groggy and her head was spinning as she came to.
CROW: Must be a loose socket somewhere.
> Gently, she began to open her eyes.
TOM: [ As Carrie ] Aw, mom, it’s not a school day…
> As they fluttered open, she could
> hear a voice announce that she was waking up.
JOEL: Please remain in the waking-up position until the fan fiction has come to a complete stop.
> As her eyes came into
> focus, she could see that she was in a room she had never seen before.
CROW: Oh, OK. Now I know exactly what it looks like.
> ‘What happened?’ she thought, then gasped as someone’s face appeared
> above hers.
TOM: [ Distorted ] Hi, I’m Leonard Maltin.
>
> She found herself staring
JOEL: Isn’t that a bit rude, Carrie?
> into the most gorgeous pair of brown
> eyes she had ever seen.
TOM: They were unlike any eyes she had ever seen before.
> She then realized that the face that housed
> the eyes bore blue skin and chrome hair.
CROW: Oh, great. Honey? We got Andorians.
> As her eyes began to travel
> down the face,
TOM: A little glue can keep them from slipping like that.
> she noticed that this figure was wearing a blue uniform
> with gold and silver trim.
JOEL: He’s painted like Jay Ramos’s house down the street.
> Suddenly, it registered, and she bolted
> upright, gasping in surprise and total disbelief.
CROW: [ As Carrie ] I’m on "Silverhawks"!
>
> "Oh man,oh man,oh man!" she whispered, "I must be dreaming! It
> can’t be you!! You can’t be him!
TOM: I’m not, but a lot of people say I look just like him.
> Can you?"
JOEL: *May* you.
> She looked into the eyes
> again and whispered, "Are you Bob?"
TOM: Newhart?
JOEL: Dylan?
CROW: –White?
>
> * * * * * * * *
> * * *
CROW: OK, a little string… we let it sit for a few hours, this barrier should be good as new again.
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Another Blog, Meanwhile 
Just got a package for STUFF FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE from the Bill Cullen estate. Where do you want it,Ma’am?
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Oh, anywhere in the Granite State will do. Maybe where the Old Man of the Mountain used to be. I think they never really worked out what to do without that.
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Why exactly was/is(?) it illegal to show actual currency on camera ? I figured they just used stage money so they didn’t need to hire a backstage extra to keep an eye on the $80 handed out to each contestant.
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard that it was illegal to show actual currency on camera. I can see preferring to for the sake of not having to have someone track each bill, or maybe to have something that shows up better on-screen. But I’d swear I remember at least a couple game shows of the 70s/80s counting out little extra bonus prize money. I’m all but positive each episode of the $1.98 Beauty Show ended with Rip Taylor handing over the money too, but that could have been slugs.
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Name That Tune had money trees and Diamondhead Game had the booth that contestants stood in as money blows around them. Of course in both cases they could have easily been fakes. I think “Scrabble” called its stage money Chuck Bucks because of the picture of President Woolery on them.
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I don’t remember that about Name That Tune, which is odd considering there was a while I couldn’t get enough of that show. (Eventually, I did.)
Also didn’t remember that about Scrabble, but my dominating impression of Scrabble was when I saw some early episodes, after watching a bunch of late episodes, and discovering just how much faster the final round went for the latest episodes. It’s when I realized that people at home had learned how to play the game more efficiently and you could see it right there on tape. Amazing to watch develop.
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If it truly was illegal and not just Bill making an excuse,they had already broken the law on this earlier episode.
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OK, that’s really neat to see in part because I recently read a collection of 50s Jimmy Olsen comics, and in one of them he’s inherited a million dollars (the usual shenanigans) and the gangsters trick him into bringing it to Spooky Old Abandoned House Road. He secreted it away in his jacket pockets and I’d wondered if you could hide a million dollars in there without it looking weird.
Not these days, of course, since you can’t get high-value denominations anymore but for the 50s, clearly, it could be done.
Still have no idea why the gangsters didn’t search Jimmy Olsen’s coat. (He told them he’d buried the money in the forest nearby and would tell Superman where it was.)
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I’ve heard quite a few tales told of the goings on behind the door of Suite 12(nix,nix). Are any of them true Professor? I frankly can’t believe that quadratic equations are flexible enough to do what is claimed in the Peggy Cass story.
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It’s hard to say! If there’s enough stories some of them are bound to have a bit of truth in them. Like, almost any story that posits there is an indoors is probably not completely off, since there is an indoors there.
Well, not of the original apartment 12 I had, sine they had to tear that building down, but it wasn’t my fault.
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“Boy,” she thought, “there sure is alot of things to look at on the
Are we sure she didn’t fall into the beta test of TVTROPES?
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Oh, this was written way too early for that. I think this could maybe have been in for the beta test of eUniverse.com.
I do regret not having a specific web site in mind for Carrie to be looking at, but it was harder in 2003(?) to find a site that was really that inexhaustible.
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JOEL: Our invention this week begins with the provocative question: What do Singapore, Betty Boop, the original six pro hockey teams, and the dot-com industry have in common? One great theme.
Also they were all cartoon dogs who slowly transformed into the forms we know them today.
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I hate to nitpick but the Boston Bruins did, in fact, start as a cartoon hyena, although there were appearances where this was ambiguous. The listing in Gerald Hamonic’s Terrytoons: The Story of Paul Terry and His Classic Cartoon Factory is just an error and he’s put an errata on his web site.
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Tom: “Hey, Joel, with all the reboots of 80s/90s cartoons, how ironic is it that we never got “Reboot:The Reboot”?”
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The structure’s right, but that potential riff became obsolete in 2018.
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Yes,I think you’re right…the Brains would have probably had Tom bring up the question and then have both Crow and Tom list examples both real and absurd as they fade to commercial,featuring an extended argument between them if the live action Popeye movie counts as a cartoon reboot since it started Robin Williams,and Tom saying,”Crow,you ignorant slut! Popeye wasn’t an 80’s/90’s cartoon!” “Three words,Tom –Popeye and Son!”
“Animaniacs:The Reboot”
“Thundercats:The Reboot”
“Capitol Critters:The Reboot”
(Voices fade as the MST3K Love Theme starts)
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Oh, now, a Popeye and Son: The Reboot would be a fun little idea. I also remember back in the 90s thinking of a spoof “Tinier Toons Adventures” but then in the mid-2000s they went and made the Baby Looney Tunes, puncturing that slight whimsy.
I’d be up for more Tigersharks episodes myself, although they probably wouldn’t respect the delicate emotional balance of the original where everybody turns into things that aren’t tiger sharks.
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