The Mystery Science of Emergency Phantom Law, Part 5
"............DOUG HERZOG!!!!"
It is to the credit of mankind everywhere that the devil's embodied
proximity fortuitously triggered the deep primal instinct for
survival in all potentially effected conscious victims, whether
carbon or molybdenum based life forms. The sound of a thousand
throats wailed, the minds and hearts of all within its virulent
aura cringed at the battering threat to cosmic hopes.
McCoy sizzled like sausage. Obi-Wan unleashed his light saber
with such alacrity and energy that Mount St. Helens re-erupted,
burying Greene in a mudslide. Brisco realized that he hadn't seen
so much despair since 'Dr. Zhivago', and Qui-Gon wondered if the
Dark Side was amenable to product placement. Carter curled up
like bacon on brake-pads when Benton refused to hug him, and Mike
became desperately nostalgic for Pearl.
"........what?......." said Herzog innocently.
"You lost, Herzie, or just trolling for a percentage?"
asked Brisco sardonically.
"I'm here visiting my wife, Sunny Von Herzog," Dougie
shrugged.
"In the basement?" asked Crow, defibrillating McCoy's
cerebrum.
"Cheaper rates," replied Herzie.
"That's him!" declared Servo, who also would have pointed
a trembling and accusatory finger if he'd had functional arms,
"He smells like Hamdingers!"
"Good enough for me," said Brisco happily, "Talk
to the cuffs, Herzie."
Herzog, verily exposed and cornered, sullenly raised himself to
his full 4'6", and pointed a befouled and sinister digit
back at the harmless 'bot, "YOU!" he snapped, clenching
his skeletal jaws in thwarted desire, "You're *funny*! I
*hate* that! Everybody *loves* you! Who loves tv executives, HUH?!
It's not fair!"
The attempt to muster up pity, however, was without effect, as
Qui-Gon began a Homeric dissertation on the nature of caustic
presumption, candy stripers started taking numbers outside Clooney's
office, Hathaway negotiated by phone with TNT, and Carter got
clotheslined by Obi's backhand.
"You shot Bambi's mom!" wailed McCoy, breaking the sound
barrier.
"This is an unusual amount of melodrama for something so
trivial, Mr. Herzog," said Qui, thinking of all the times
he had rung Darth Maul's doorbell and then ran away.
"Gee," pondered Servo, "I never knew humor could
be so deadly."
"I did," said Crow with certitude.
"Dead man walkin'," murmured Brisco, scrutinizing Herzog
with discernment.
"The pressures of your broadcast medium have rendered him
malignant," said Qui-Gon to Greene, who had reached the nadir
of existence by taking phone calls for Alan Alda.
Seeing his plans for glory, or at least escape, evaporating like
Saturday night ratings, Herzog began lurching with ire, looming
over the assembled paragons with malice, and played his trump
card.
"Canceled!" he screamed with maniacal glee, "You're
all canceled! You're finished, washed up!"
It took a moment for this revelation to soak in, and it was Greene,
the sudden objective of a strolling suicidal plate-glass window,
who spoke first.
"We're the number one show," he said softly.
"We got enough Emmys to sink Sri Lanka," said McCoy,
as if speaking to a dim-witted door stop.
"I've been on 'Biography', " said Brisco.
"And I've got residuals falling out my ass," said Mike.
Qui-Gon wept.
"Time to take a ride in my orange Volvo, Dougie," said
Richard Brooks.
"Have fun beyond the rim," said Captain James Sheridan.
"How 'bout a nice relaxing stretch above the arctic circle,
Herzie?" said Joel Fleishman.
"Let me share some interesting visions with you, Doug,"
said Frank Black.
"You will make a fine addition to my collection," chortled
John Glover.
"Let's get up close and personal with some power tools, Herz,"
smirked Michael Madsen.
Finally reduced to an object of ridicule, Herzog could stand no
more, as his daydreams of whoring himself out to Animal Planet
no longer sustained him. In desperation, and with lightning reflexes
not previously displayed since Preston Sturgis dropped a nickel
in the Paramount parking lot, Herzog grabbed the closest foe at
hand, immediately put him in a head-lock, and pressed a razor-sharp
scalpel to his throat.
"Back off or the mermaid gets it!" he bellowed.
"Holy core! Meeza gonna gut like a trout!" screeched
Jar Jar, somewhat redundantly.
Our heroes, it must be admitted, made a solid and relentless tableau,
as they stood rooted and shocked at their comrade's unfortunate
helplessness, a hostage to black-hearted fate, and whole minutes
passed in thickening silence. Eventually it was Lenny Brisco who
put the entire groups thoughts and feelings into words.
"Oh, Herzie," he smiled in disbelief, "You poor,
dumb, geek."
"Well," said Qui-Gon, "Our task here is completed.
Obi, fire up the shuttle, please."
"I'm gonna order a very tall adult beverage, " sighed
McCoy, as if released from bondage.
"Yeah," agreed Brisco, "A little R&R sounds
good. Sherry Lewis invited me to the Hamptons, ya know."
"Maybe Elizabeth is taking a break about now," wondered
Greene, watching a writhing and whimpering Jar Jar.
"Ya know," said Mike, trying to delay his return to
the Highway of Multiplying Speed Bumps that he drove in on, "It
seems a shame to let this guy off the hook so easily."
"I know, Mike," said Servo sweetly, "But because
of all this publicity, I just signed a million dollar endorsement
contract with the Franklin Mint."
"Limited edition, too," said Crow, quickly cornering
the die-cast market on eBay.
"Boyos! Boyos! Help meeee!" pleaded Jar Jar, his strangled
and throttled neck constricting like discarded latex gloves.
"I hate to break the news to you Jar," offered Brisco,
"But you're not even real."
"And Pammy Anderson *is*?!" fretted the piscean cgi.
Despite what many people believe, including the great intellectual
minds inhabiting our most hallowed halls of higher learning and
clogging the entrances to art-movie houses, the universe does
not twirl, in fact, wholly without justice, or even indecipherable
irony, towards even its smallest molecular components. So, it
was of little surprise to the truly clueless amongst us that it
was this very moment in time when the hospital administration
grew sick and tired of Jar Jar's continuous spawning up in Obstetrics,
and decided to pump out the bilge.
The ensuing deluge, with serendipitous grace, had no problem whatsoever
in sweeping the gasping and hypertensive Herzog off his feet,
slamming him through a sewer grate, and flushing him far out into
the Atlantic region known as the Bermuda Triangle which hereafter
was designated off limits to all shipping, used exclusively as
a dumping ground for nuclear waste, and eternally inhabited by
'Godzilla', 'Deep Blue Sea', 'Lake Placid', 'Jaws 3', 'Battlefield
Earth', and Kevin Costner.
"That was a nice ending," sighed Servo.
"Indeed," agreed Qui-Gon as he made Detective Brisco
an honorary general in the Tatooine Municipal Color Guard, "But
we must now return to the void of space, rife with contending
forces, the fate of the universe in our hands."
"I know what you mean," said Kerry, who now had to muck
out the surgical ward with a shovel.
But before our gallant warriors returned to their previous mode
of life, they gathered together one last time, held hands, and
sang the television viewers' hymn.
(To the tune of 'When You Wish Upon a Star')
"When your dish finds dramas are
Anemic, witless, underpar,
It's enough to make you grunt
'This tube is duunnnnnnnnnggggg..........'
But we have a handy hope
Right here in our cute remote.
Just click awhile and you will smile:
'Thank heaven! It's Reeeeeeeee Ruuuunnnnnnnns!'"
"Wow, it's great to finally have
a partner I can get along with," said Lenny Brisco.
"We be friends!" chirped Jar Jar, learning to drive
through Manhattan traffic.
"But if you ever see a gang of skells coming after you with
a barrel of tartar sauce, run," advised Brisco.
"How wude!" said Jar Jar.
The End