MiSTed: Skippy’s Mom (part 11 of 12)

I bring you now the conclusion of “Skippy’s Mom”, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fanfiction fresh to you from something like 1999. There’s still a host segment to go, so don’t worry, there’s something to look for next week. The whole of the series should be at this link.

Please do not cut yourself on the razor-sharp commentary about the scripting of the movie Armageddon! There’s a riff about “Who will I kill?” which, yes, references Doctor Forrester’s song after TV’s Frank departed. I thought harder about the anachronism than the riff deserves. The Nieman-Marcus Cookie Recipe is an ancient urban legend. According to it, someone asked for the department store’s cookie recipe and assumed the “two-fifty” cost for it was two dollars fifty cents. On discovering the two hundred fifty dollar charge they made it their mission to reproduce and disseminate this important recipe, especially to computer bulletin boards. I’ve never made it myself.

The story proper is concluded, and author Charles “Runt-Abu” Brown is in the midst of a point-by-point discussion of how the story changed from first draft to published edition. I always find this sort of thing interesting and am sincerely happy he included it.

Some of the odd symbols here are from ASCII art that’s too hard for me to reproduce faithfully here. My recollection is that the ‘quaint little puzzle’ appeared inside a text-image outline of California, but if I’m mistaken, I’ll never know.

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> 10.Unfortunatly Susan is slightly mad, no she’s very mad

TOM: Slappy woke her up out of a really cool flashback!

> (Imagine One
> flew over the cuckoo clock with Susan in it…)

JOEL: Okay, now imagine "House of Wax" with Hippety Hopper in it.

TOM: Right. Now imagine "Metropolis" with Betty Boop in it.

CROW: When you’re done with that, imagine "Tron" with Popeye and Olive Oyl in it.

> However Slappy drags
> her back to her treehouse where….
> 11.Skippy the cat is now quite happily living with Rita

CROW: And her cousin Oedipus.

> (and Runt who is
> now also back…)
> Skippy’s mom recognises Skippy (How he know looks like a cat for
> crying out loud!) and even more bizzarly Skippy recognises her. When
> he does hesuddenly flashes with light and becomes

CROW: Rodimus Prime!

> Skippy Squirrel…
> 12.Slappy blows up the hosiptal with Susan Rita’s

JOEL: Meter maid’s!

> and Skippy’s help
> _AFTER_ finding they got the wrong DNA results.
> Now if only they had
> tripled checked….

TOM: They would have discovered the hospital was actually a trout farm.

> (For very observent viewers they may just notice that the bottle says
> <Sample 001 | Feline | Male | Runt > on it….)

CROW: But this ending was omitted for clarity.

> ========================================================================
> ======
> Dedication

JOEL: Perseverance, faith, hope, and love.

> ==========
> As well as the dedication at the start I would also like to dedicate this

CROW: To landing a cartoon–

JOEL: [ Holding CROW’s shoulder ] You’re too late.

> to the following people for trying to keep me sane over the past week:–
> MasemJMouse | Keeper | Colin | Plucky | LeloniBunny | DEViaNT |
> Wakkymouse | Wakko | Skippy | ALL (else) at #watertower and ALL at a.t.a.

JOEL: And all the ships at sea! Flash!

> ————————————————————————
> ——

> Unexplainable Plot Descrepencies:–
>
> Okay Chicken Boo morphed into Hello Nurse,

TOM: Now, *there’s* a disguise.

> it does work better with her
> rather then chicken boo.
> Abu (Yes the monkey from Aladdin and map designer from D.N.R.) snuck
> in too this script.

CROW: And if he’s ever caught, he’ll be in a world of trouble.

> Animals can become alert in an instant,

JOEL: But only if you use the can opener.

> so why are Runt and Skippy
> tired at some points in the story?

TOM: Because they have to walk 700 miles without a break?

> Journey to Nevada desert – ‘kay I don’t know where Burbank is and it’s
> geographical closeness to Nevada is a total mystery to me!

CROW: And consulting an atlas would demand minutes of research.

> Susan -> Romana
> DNA is now called INK to reflect the fact they are toons.

JOEL: Ooooh.

CROW: Ah. You get it now?

TOM: Yes! Now I see the INK joke.

> The computer, don’t say anything,

CROW: You’ll just embarass your mother.

> it’s not that far away from what
> computers can do.

JOEL: ‘Cause making up wacky stuff would hurt the realism.

> The plot ends <CLOSED> e.g you know why the INK was such a close
> match for Rita and this story has no chance to be continued

TOM: Unless, say, Skippy’s mom ever has something to *do* with her son sometime in the future.

> (Unlike the
> big horrible daily perodi-stories.) Also I think it’s a lot better
> to finish it with a proper explanation.
>
> And that’s it more or less this story took a mere 15 hours to write

JOEL: That’s still more than thirty times as long as "Armageddon" took to write.

> and
> a massive 2 days of planning (but that was mostly ’cause I got lost on
> the way

TOM: Turns out *he* was wandering through the Nevada desert, looking for Skippy’s mom.

> and did not know what to write.)
> ==============================================================================

> | Skippy’s Mom 1.1 | 507 Lines | P-S 6 | Ranking 8.6/10 | 9/6/97 21:52
> GMT-1 |
> ==============================================================================

JOEL: It’s good that we were told the exact minute when this story was finished. Otherwise we might miss our orbital window.

> /——————\
> | |Next Week| |
> | \———/ |
> | What will it be? |

TOM: Who will I kill?

> Whilst you are waiting for next weeks fanfic you
> |——————| can try and slove this quaint little puzzle

CROW: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and… wait.

> |saediynafoledatic | that actually tells you what next weeks fanfic
> |ehtdnarenrawokkay | maybe… Good luck as it’s probably full of
> |ebdluoctirodraugeht\ speeling mistaks!

JOEL: Spelling mistakes? Go on, tell us another one.

> |hplarhtiwydorap \
> |lanmonehpalacimonortas\
> |ebyamtiwollofotessohci \

CROW: I never got into ‘Scattergories.’

> |yrotshcihwnognidnepedtnur \
> |dnaatireruteafottontsrifeht \
> |ebyamcifnafskeewtxenroF<— |

TOM: Why is he sending us the Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe?

> \—————————–/
>
> ————–29934A6D602B–

JOEL: And that’s a story.

[ ALL exit ]

[ To continue … ]