Notorious hatemonger Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps gets a visit from those loveable Warner siblings Yakko, Wakko & Dot, who adopt him as their "new special friend". What can I say? Some people just really need to have an anvil dropped on their head.

GOD . HATES . THE . WARNERS
AN ANIMANIACS ADVENTURE
by Laika Pupkino

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"The-e-e-e-e-e-e-ere, you're nice and cle-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-an;
Although your face looks like it went through a machine..."
~~~Bugs Bunny, Rabbit of Seville
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A room someplace. It is night time, or perhaps the windows have all been covered, but all the light in here emanates from a few scattered lamps; these large swaths of darkness creating a stark expressionist composition of light and shadow. The place has the drab functional ambience of the office in a warehouse or some makeshift military command center. We see a desk with a gooseneck lamp and assorted junk on it, and racks of steel shelving against the the wall on either side of it, between which hangs a signed photograph of Freddy Kruger ("To Fred- Keep giving people Nightmares! All the best; XXX! Freddie") in a cheap little ugly frame and a large bulletin board crowded with sheets of paper, their messages all indistinct scribbles and exclamation points...

The silhouetted form of a little old man in a suit and an oversized cowboy hat is standing with his back to us, speaking into the handset of an old fashioned telephone on the desk. His tone is serious, astonished. "What's that? Horribly murdered you say? You mean just walking down the street?"

A tinny voice buzzes from the earpiece and the old man nods, his hat going up and down.

"Oh I see, the victim was a cross dresser. So it was a hate crime then .......... Dear Lord! They did that? Oh that is just brutal! ............. And then they joked about it later? Simply beastly! So where and when is the funeral? Could you spell that?"

Taking up a pencil, he starts scribbling on a pad of paper. His voice becomes slower and quieter, his posture sagging more with each new revelation: "Closed casket, you say? I can see why, I mean if they- Oh Mercy, that is just vicious! That is just senseless! That is just..."

"WONDERFUL!" he booms, and now that we see his haggard face from the front (above a bolo tie with a clasp representing the skull of a Texas longhorn) it becomes clear that the ghastly news he's been hearing is making him very, very happy. Crazy-happy. He throws his head back and laughs maniacally. As his laughter builds and builds his hard beady little eyes grow into big whirling red spirals; and his teeth are revealed to be (at least for this one scene...) triangular and razor sharp.

This man is the Reverend Fred Phelps, leader and patriarch of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas, and an actual person, unfortunately ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps ). As his hand hangs up the phone we briefly see the contents of the desk: Coffee mug. Pencil holder brimming with chewed up yellow pencils. A bobbing plastic novelty "drinky bird". A scale model of a guillotine. A slim paperback book called 101 DEAD U.S. SOLDIER JOKES and another entitled DROWNING PUPPIES FOR FUN & PROFIT...

He jumps up, agitated, and starts rushing around the room. "The pervert's funeral is tomorrow! That's not much time to get ready. Okay now, let's see ........ What do we need? What do we need?"

He reaches up and grabs his hat to make sure it's still on his head, "Stetson hat- Check!"

He hurries over to a bunch of rainbow-colored picket signs leaning up against the wall, and flips through them, quickly surveying their venomous messages, "Hate signs- Check!"

He pulls a scroll of paper out of his pocket, unfurls it and glances at it. "List of the true faithful who will join me on my holy crusade tomorrow, all seven of 'em! Check! No wait, make that six," he corrects himsef and crosses off one of the names with a pencil, "Cousin Jasper is in jail."

He zips to another table where a loud hailer is lying, picks it up and says through it in a harsh booming voice, "Bullhorn, with batteries charged- Check! Oh man, do I love taunting funerals with this thing! There's just nothing like mocking people when they're at their lowest!"

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

An outside view of the house reveals that it is daytime. We sees a weedy dirt front yard decorated with a busted toilet, assorted half buried car parts, several plastic milk crates and a spooky skeletal dead oak tree, from which hangs an effigy of Uncle Sam, with a noose around his neck and X's for eyes, wearing a crudely lettered cardboard sign that says I'M A BIG QUEER!

Three intrepid Girl Scouts (who with their floppy doglike ears and cherry-tomato noses don't appear to be quite human...) make their way up a walkway almost completely hemmed in by signs on posts stuck into the dirt, bearing messages such as "BEWARE OF GOD", "GO TO HELL!". and "GOD HATES AVON LADIES". The middle scout, who is carrying a large stack of boxes, has on a backwards red baseball cap instead of the beret-like hats her two friends wear.

At the front door a white gloved hand on a tubular black wrist puts its finger to the doorbell button.

Back in his gloomy lair Fred hears the DING DONG! and sets down the bullhorn, "Hmmmmmmm, now who could that be?"

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Phelps's house may be run down and desperately in need of a paint job, but it has a nice porch. Or at least it's a large one- with a pair of sculpted wooden columns holding up the roof above it, a rusted iron hibachi and a couple of large clay pots with the shrivelled dead remnants of plants poking up from them. The three Girl Scouts---who are in fact the Animaniacs: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot---are crowded around the door, which is opened by a white hatted old man who isn't much taller than they are.

Yakko---the tallest of the three, and every inch the confident salesman---snakes his leg out and sticks his foot in the door, "Good Day Sir, we're selling girl scout cookies for our troop."

"No time to talk. We're getting ready to go picket a funeral," says Phelps dismissively, when suddenly his sweet tooth kicks in and cookies start to sound good to him. He steps out onto the porch, pulling at his lower lip, "Well I am rather partial to those peanut butter ones. Do you have those?"

"Do-Si-Dos? Yep we sure do! Right here," answers Yakko brightly.

Wakko has been delegated to carry all the cookies. He is staggering under the weight of the pile of boxes he's holding, which is so tall that we can't see his head. As Yakko lifts the top four boxes off the stack Wakko's face is revealed. The preacher stares suspiciously at Wakko then takes a closer look at Yakko, "Hey waaaaaait a minute! You can't be Girl Scouts, you're not even girls."

Dot, the smallest Warner, puts her hands on her hips and growls ferociously, "Hey watch it, Buster!"

He looks down, noticing her for the first time. "Okay well you are, Miss. But these two ......... Why, you're boys!"

Yakko pats his chest under the sash festooned with merit badges, then pulls out the front of his red pants and peers down into them, "Well son of a gun, he's right. How did we wind up in the Girl Scouts, Wakko?"

"That's a gooooood question," drawls Wakko in his gluey Liverpudlian accent.

"I'll tell ya how," declares Phelps fiercely, "It's the DEVIL!"

The Warner siblings gape in horror and in a flash they have clambered up onto Phelps' back and shoulders, as if he's some kind of defensive stronghold. They are all wearing army helmets, except that Yakko's is a long-handled kitchen pot and Dot's is pink with a big daisy on the front. They are pointing popguns in various directions- "WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!!"

Phelps shakes himself and the Warners tumble off of him. He points a gnarled finger at them and warns, "The Devil is everywhere. In the culture, the schools, the media, spreading sick depraved ideas-"

"You mean like Windows Vista?" asks Wakko.

"Worse than that even. I'm talking about the one-world faggo-feminist Catholic secular humanist crypto-homo Zionist Occupied World Health Organization transmorphodite liberal Fox News agenda!"

"WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!!" cry the Animaniacs in alarm, and leap up onto him again for protection.

"Stop doing that," hollars Phelps as he once again dislodges them, "And get offa my porch! You know, I figured this day would come, the Girl Scouts letting boys and mutants and furries in. I mean, they're already allowing those disgusting lesbians to join! Evil is what it is! The Girl Scouts are evil! Your cookies are evil-"

"No," moans Wakko forlornly, "Not the coooooookies!"

"YOU'RE evil," concludes Phelps, hunched forward, his face right in close to theirs.

This is too much for Wakko. He burst into tears and buries his face in Yakko's shoulder, sobbing hysterically. Yakko pats his back, while Phelps crosses his arm and grins at the distress he's caused Wakko.

Dot glares at the old man, "Shame on you, Mister! Picking on a bunch of kids and making my poor brother cry! You are a very bad man! Why are you such a big old meanie?!"

"I'm not a meanie," protests Phelps, sounding wounded.

"Hello, Earth to Nutbag," says Yakko in a sarcastically 'reasonable' tone, "You go around picketting funerals. Who the heck does that? They even passed a federal law on account of you."

"But those people at those funerals deserve it! They're sinners! They just don't understand how important it is too hate queers every second of every minute of every hour of every day. That makes 'em fag enablers, and for that their souls are damned."

"So that's why you're a preacher?" asks Dot, all wide-eyed innocence, "To try and to keep all those misguided folks from going to hell?"

"Nope. They're beyond any sort of help. All I can do is console myself with the fact that they'll be spending forever and ever having a really, really, really bad time. This country, and probably the whole world, why they're just wicked! And there is no doubt at all about where they're headed," smiles Phelps, relishing the notion.

Yakko scratches the side of his head, "You mean to say everybody's going to Hell?"

"Just about. And it's their own damn fault, for refusing to do what I- I mean what God tells 'em to!"

"Then who isn't destined for that fiery place?" asks Wakko.

"Well me, that I know of."

Yakko, Wakko and Dot all cry out together, "JUST YOU?!?!!"

"Isn't that enough?" asks Phelps in a timid voice, surprised at their surprise.

Now the Warner kids are stepping cautiously backward, edging slowly away from him. Yakko stammers nervously, "We're gonna go fetch a nice doctor for you now, so you can uh ....... have a little talk. The doctor is your friend. H-he wants to help you..."

Phelps ignores him, declaring, "I have it on the highest authority that The Lord is mighty P.O.'d at all his children down here on Earth, and is fixin' to bring the Divine Sledge-o-Matic down on this planet any day now! But I know that I'll be saved. Because you see..." He removes his hat and holds it reverently in front of him and sings slowly, at the higher reaches of his voice:

"Some people think that God's a wimp
forgiving everything;
A God of love and kindness
But that's not who's praise I sing.
Because I know, he speaks to me
and expounds with great clarity,
that psychotic brutality
is just ....... his ....... kind ........ of thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!"

The tempo of the music quickens, becoming a snazzy soft shoe. A hunched over, toothless old woman with a humungous nose is walking with the aid of a cane down the sidewalk past the house. Although she is meters away from the porch Wakko somehow snatches the cane away from her and flips it to Phelps. The preacher leans on it jauntily, dipping his knees in time to the music as he sings...

"When bad things happen to nice people;
That's music to my ears!
If those people are sodomy-ful;
That's music to my ears!
As fags and freaks there's nothing so evil,
So when they meet with something lethal
Their anguished wails make me quite gleeful-
That's music to my ears!"

In a moment of abandon he throws his hat aside. The old lady had been rather indignant about having her cane stolen, but then curiousity got the better of her and she has wandered up onto the porch to see what all the fuss is about. She now has fallen victim to Spontaneous Musical Interlude Syndrome, as she and the three Warners sway back and forth behind Phelps, singing "Bobba Buh-Bomp Bomp Bomp" in accompaniment to his:

"Pain and suffering, sorrow, grief;
That's music to my ears!
For those who don't share my beliefs;
That's music to my ears!
And the one belief that I hold dear
Is God hates all degenerate queers,
And when they die, if you should cheer-
That's music to my ears!"

"An earthquake in some foreign land
That's music to my ears,
The murder of a transwoman
That's music to my ears;
A busload of dykes going off a cliff
makes 'Little Fred' grow strangely stiff,
And the gruesome fate of Doctor Scratchensniff-
That's music to my ears!"

The Warners are somehow now out of their girl scout uniforms and back in their trademark garb. As Phelps concludes his song they cheer wildly, Wakko leaping into the air and whistling with two fingers wedged in his mouth. They shower the reverend with roses, who nods and bows his head, blushing and yet loving all this praise.

"Thank you, thank you, you're too kind," gushes Phelps, "And now for my next number, I'd like to do-"

Yakko---wearing the minister's cowboy hat---yanks the microphone Phelps has somehow aquired away from him, saying, "I'm sorry! We'd love to hear it but we're really kind of busy, we just don't have time. Everything just moves so fast these days; what with instant messaging, minute rice, speed dating, quickie divorces, rapid transit, hyperactive children, zoom lenses, Jiffy Pop-"

And as if to illustrate, while Yakko is saying this his two sibs are slipping a merit badge sash over Phelps' torso and sticking a Girl Scout beanie on his head, working so quickly that he doesn't seem to realize what's going on as they pile all the boxes of cookies into his arms.

"...flash drives, quick-sand, fast forward, bullet trains, Wikipedia, Swift Boat politics and Speedy Gonzales." The eldest Warner concludes his spiel by patting him on the head and saying, "But we'll certainly enjoy the cookies young lady, and good luck with selling the rest of them."

"Gee thanks, Mister!" grins the old man childishly as the trio withdraws into "their" house, leaving him standing there on the porch, looking at first complacent, and then confused. And then---as he realizes that he's not a Girl Scout and has been tricked---quite angry! He drops his pile of boxes, tears off the sash and beanie, and starts pounding furiously on the door!

A strange little round shuttered window high on the green wall next to the door opens and Yakko appears. He is wearing a very fake looking green wig and a long drooping green moustache.

"Nobody gets in to see th' Wizard! Not no way, no how! So scram!" he snarls in a keening old-codger's voice, and then abruptly pulls the shutter closed!

Even angrier, Phelps raises his fist to pound on the door again, but then gets an idea. He storms down the porch steps and around the corner of the house...

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Inside the Phelps home Yakko turns away from the odd little hatchlike window and steps down off the chair in front of it, dusting his palms against each other in a "Good Riddance" gesture.

In the parlor---a cozier looking part of this house than we had seen before---the Warners quickly settle in and make themselves at home. Dot is playing Ragtime Cowboy Joe on the old upright piano.

Wakko walks in from the kitchen, licking his chops and carrying an improbably tall sandwich, that seems to have everything from asparagus to pizza slices hanging out from between the two slices of bread. His mouth expanding alarmingly, he consumes the towering sandwich in one gulp, swallowing noisily.

And Yakko is posing in front of a big mirror in Phelps' giant hat, pretending to be the man himself, "Oh gawd I hate queers; Uh-HATEM-uh-HATEM-uh-HATEM-uh-HATEM! And God hates them too! That's why he made 'em, jest so he could hate 'em- Yup! Yup! Yup!"

"Relax brother dear, he's gone! Let us enjoy the spoils of victory," grins Dot.

"Right," says Yakko, brightening. "I can't believe he fell for that old gag. What a sap!"

"I know, what a chump!" titters Dot.

"What a dolt!"

"What a maroon!"

"What a dumb cluck!" Yakko smirks.

"What a dip-thong!"

"What a fondue skewer!"

"What a rama-lama-DING-DONG!" Dot giggles.

"What a sick, twisted piece of-" Yakko stops in mid-sentance and changes his tone, offering a big fake toothy smile to someone we can't see, "Oh .............. Hi there!"

A square trap door has opened in the wooden floor, its underside labelled SECRET ATF ESCAPE TUNNEL. The top half of Fred Phelps protrudes from it. His brow is a heavy dark ridge and he's literally fuming: a greasy mottled little cone shaped cloud churning above his head.

From a worm's-eye vantage point out in the house's front yard we see the front door opening and the three Warner sibs being ejected from it. They fly toward us side by side by side, almost as if sitting on an invisible couch, and then grimace from the impact as they hit the ground and skid to a stop directly in front of us, looming gigantically.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

After locking the front door Phelps walks to his study, slapping his palms across each other in the same exact gesture that Yakko's had used earlier, satisfied that he is rid of the three pests.

He sits down at his computer, turns it on and says, "Well now, the World is sure gonna hear about this! I'll post another of my blogs, tellin' how the Girl Scouts are the Daughters of Satan, and every last stinking one of 'em is goin' to Hell!"

He begins typing frantically, cackling evilly from time to time, and muttering, "Stupid Girl Scouts, with their friendship bracelets and their cootie catchers and their Bingo-was-his-name-O!"

When suddenly a spooky, wavering voice is calling out, "FRRE-E-E-E-E-D-DDD ...... PHE-E-L-L-L-P-PPS!"

The bogus preacher jerks, and looks around, "Huh? Who said that?"

"FRE-E-E-E-E-E-E-D-DD PHE-E-E-E-L-L-L-P-PPS!" calls the voice again.

This time we see the source, a slotted vent on the wall alongside his knee, but Phelps is looking up toward the ceiling for some reason, "Who is this?"

On the outside of the house is another vent, which Yakko and Wakko kneel in front of, Yakko struggling to keep a straight face as he moans eerily, "DOST THOU NOTTEST RECOGNIZE ME? I AM THY LORD-ETH GOD-ETH IN HEAVEN!"

Phelps cocks his head, "You sound different somehow this time..."

"THOU DAREST TO DOUBTETH MY WORDETH?"

Phelps bows and grovels, "No, of course not, Your Utmost Extremity! Never!"

"THEN PROVEST THYSELF ................................................ ETH!"

"Yes, anything! How?"

"GO THOU TO YONDER NEAREST LAMP AND REMOVETH THEE BULB OF INCANDESCENCE."

Beside Phelp's desk is a floor lamp. He removes the lampshade and then unscrews the bulb, and addresses the ceiling again, "I have done as you asked, Your Highest Divinity..."

"IT IS GOOD. NOW TAKEST YE THY FINGER, AND PLACETH IT-"

Wakko leans in close to Yakko's ear and whispers something. Yakko snickers nastily and tells him, "I like how you think, but we'd never get it past the censors. Let's go with the finger..."

"What was that, Lord?" asks Phelps, confused by the muffled indistinct conversation he'd just heard.

"I SAID: TAKE THY FINGER AND RAMMEST IT INTO YE OPENING FROM WHENCE YE LIGHTETH BULBETH HATH BEEN REMOVETH'D FROM!"

"But wait a second! You want me to put my finger in here?"

"RI-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-GGGHHTTT," intones the voice of God throatily.

Phelps gulps, "But there's electricity in there!"

"R-R-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-GGGGGGHHHHTTT."

"Uh ...... But won't I get shocked?"

"OH DOUBTFUL CUR, DOST THOU BELIEVE IN ME OR NOT?! WITH FAITH THOU SHANTEST BE HARMETH'D!"

"I believe! I believe!" whimpers Fred, and jams his finger into the receptacle.

Tethered only by his finger he rises off the floor, bouncing rigidly, his skeleton flashing inside his flesh like a neon sign, before slumping at last to the floor. He looks rather singed.

Phelps staggers to his feet. Feeling betrayed, he groans, "But you said I wouldn't get hurt..."

"AND WITH FAITH THOU WOULDN'ST HAVEST NOT SUFFEREDETH! UNWORTHY SERVANT, THOU HAST FAILED ME! I SHOULD SMITE THEE WITH UNCONTROLLABLE SODOMIFIC URGES. I CAN DO THAT, YOU KNOW..."

The bogus minister falls to his knees and wails, "OH PLEASE NO LORD, ANYTHING BUT THAT! Just give me another test ...... I'll be worthy!"

"VERILY WELL THEN .............. DOTH THOU HAVEST A WAFFLE IRON?"
.

Meanwhile, Dot is quite frustrated not to be able to see the show. She has been running up and down the outside wall of the house trying to find a window to see in through, but they are all covered up with aluminum foil. Finally she locates a clear one, on the side of the house's attached garage. It is rather high on the garage's wall but there is a stack of wooden crates and barrels, patched tires, iron bedframes and other 1940's-vintage cartoon crap right next to it, which she scales easily. From her perch she signals to her siblings farther down the side of the house, pantomiming: Get HIM into HERE!

Big brother nods at the logic of this. Forms a circle with his thumb and index finger and signals his agreement.
.

Back in the house, Phelps gulps loudly, "A waffle iron?"

"NEVERMIND THAT! I HAST CHANGED MY VAST AND UNKNOWABLE MIND. GOETH THOU OUT TO THINE GARAGETH, AND AWAITETH YE THERE," decrees Yakko, before he and Wakko abandon their primitive intercom.

Phelps exits his study.

Phelps enters the garage. We see a rusty Ford Edsel with a very crooked radio antenna, a drill press, table saw, lots of benches and tools. We also see a high window with the three Warners huddled behind it, grinning mischeviously; but he doesn't notice them...

The Reverend looks around, "Are you here?"

"OF COURSE, I AM EVERYWHERE," calls Yakko, his hands cupped around his mouth, "OR DOST THOU DOUBTEST THAT AS WELL?"

"But I don't! Really, Your Infiniteness! Let me prove myself!"

"RI-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-IGGHT! THEN PICKETH UP THE ANVIL THOU SEE-ETH ON YON WORK TABLE, AND LIFTETH IT ABOVE THE CROWN OF THINE HEAD!" says Yakko over the top of the window. It's a transom style window, a grid of square panes---hinged at the bottom---that opens into the garage. And to make themselves comfortable first Dot and then her brothers have lain down on the angled window, which is held in place by a chain in either top corner...

The reverend is not a powerful man, but he manages to drag the anvil off of the table and hug it to his chest. Then---straining, arms quaking----he manages to raise it into the space above his head. Sweating profusely, he grunts with effort, "Are you sure about this?"

"THAT SOUNDS LIKE DOUBT TO ME," chides Yakko, "AND DOUBT PUTS ME IN A SMITEY MOOD. YOU KNOW, THIS TIME NEXT WEEK YOU COULD BE DANCING IN THE BALLETS TROCKADERO!"

"No, PLEASE!"

"THEN DROP THE ANVIL!!"

"Oh God I don't wanna be gay," whines Phelps miserably, and releases the anvil.

And at the instant he does, he sees the three Warners---watching raptly from their transparent perch, their chins resting in their palms---and realises that he's been had. With a loud

CLANG!!!
the anvil impacts with Phelp's head and makes the whole top half of it perfectly flat.

The Warner's laughter is so raucous and out of control, all three of them pounding on the panes, that the chains holding the window up snap and it drops forward- sending them all sliding off of it and into the garage. Uh oh.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Agonizingly and with great effort, Phelps removes the anvil from his head and drops it. Being a cartoon character his recovery is quite rapid---his head popping back into its regular shape with an appropriate sound effect---and after shaking it a bit he can once again focus his eyes.

"YOU!!" he roars, in a rage-choked voice that promises terrible and immediate violence. As does the large and heavy axe that he is now picking up.

The Animaniacs take off---bouncing up and down at a rate that is almost a blur---while hooting crazily in high pitched voices: "HOO HOO! HOO HOO! HOO HOO! HOO HOO! HOO HOO!"

They bound out the door and into the yard like this, until all at once they stop in midair, perfectly stationary. His siblings wait patiently as Yakko addresses us, "You will note that we are performing a signature bit from the immortal Daffy Duck. The scriptwriters wanted us to do a Bugs Bunny bit, but there's no way I'm kissing him!"

Then---just as abruptly---they resume their hooting-and-bouncing escape. Axe in hand, Phelps chases them.

Running normally now, they and then their pursuer vault over the low picket fence, into the backyard right next to Phelps's, where his neighbor has hung an immense amount of laundry out to dry. Clotheslines zigzag every which way, forming a maze of bedsheets and clothing. Phelps chases his prey all through these fabric corridors, the soundtrack cueing "Here We Go Gathering Nuts in May, Nuts in May, Nuts in May..."; And at times there seem to be more than one of each Warner kid appearing here and then there as they flee through the maze.

They emerge from the maze's far exit, which has a carousel style-clothesline on a post directly in front of it. The Warners---being shorter---duck down and zip under the stuff hanging from it. But Phelps blunders into it with a loud OOOF!; causing the whole clothesline to spin like a brightly colored pinwheel!

When it expels him a second later he is missing his weapon, and appears quite dizzy. Too dizzy to notice the attrocious pumpkin-flesh-orange-and-pea-soup-green checkerboard dress he is wearing, or that somehow he's aquired four brightly colored jumbo curlers, rolled inside random bunches of his whispy hair. But as his vertigo fades he looks down at himself, and lets loose a high pitched shriek!

"Oh Girlfriend, you are adorable!" gushes Dot, "That wasn't so hard, now was it? Now you can give up all that being-a-big-stupid-crazy-man stuff, and embrace the cute girl you always were inside! Cuteness rocks! We're gonna have such fun together!"

"B-b-but this isn't mine," rasps Phelps, grasping a handful of the front of the dress, his expression wild with fear.

Wakko looks up at him and declares with solemn ernestness, "I want you to know I don't think of you as anything but a real woman."

"No! Really! This isn't mine! It's ........ it's..." Phelps notices Slappy Squirrel stepping out onto the house's back porch with a basket of linens, and points, "It's HERS!"

Slappy makes a disgusted face, "Nice try, Sister. But I wouldn't be caught dead in a schmatte like that!"

"I swear, I didn't do this. Look, I've got my regular clothes on under this," stammers Phelps, and grabbing the neck of the dress he yanks it off over his head, "See?"

But underneath he is wearing shiny black hose, garters, panties and an obviously empty black brassiere.

"GAAAAAHHH!!" cries Phelps, and wriggles out of the lingerie in a frantic blur. But now somehow he is dressed as Little Bo Peep, complete with bonnet and shepard's crook.

He tears this outfit off, becoming 7-of-9 from Star Trek: Voyager, with Borg hardware is imbedded in his face, and a set of conical falsies poking out from the two-tone uniform that tightly hugs his frail and bony male physique.

His hysteria mounting, he begins removing garments in rapid succession! For a split second each, we see an 80's businesswoman's knee skirt and serious jacket, a white nurses uniform with a cap, a colorful party dress, a bustled evening gown worthy of an Oscars attendee, a delicate silk kimono, a goth chick's leather skirt, boots and long striped stockings; and so on...

When he stops to catch his breath---panting loudly---he is wearing Bjork's infamous 2005 swan dress.

This causes him to scream even louder, and he takes off running, tearing off outfits at such a tremendous rate that no single one is distinguishable; which causes him to leave an impressive mass of them behind himself as he runs. Seen from a vantage point a hundred feet up it's an impressive sight- a great multicolored mound of fabric materializing behind him like a jet's contrail.

Now we see him in profile, in what is probably a park, gasping laborously as he runs up the crest of a oddly-shaped little hillock that looks like it might've come from a Dr. Seuss drawing. Phelps is clearly quite fatigued. For the last dozen or fifteen changes he has slowed way down from the superhuman speed his panic had given him earlier, each outfit now taking twice as long to remove as the previous one...

And we notice that with each dress he removes he is shrinking, as if he's jettisonning his own body mass along with the outfits. He is morphing, his features softening, becoming not just increasingly female but younger and younger, smaller and smaller; becoming a teen, a tween, an 8 year old, a 5 year old, a toddler, and finally---reaching the summit---a diapered baby girl, with one big pink bow in the hair on top of her head. There are no more outfits to take off...

The three Warners are waiting there for her, bent over with their hands on their knees, going "Awwwww!"

But the baby is having none of it! She screams at them, "What have you done to me?!"

"Hey, don't blame us," shrugs Yakko, "We were holding out for the 'Slick ramp to Hell' ending."

"You can't do this to me! This is Identity Death! BWAAAAAAAHHH! I'm forgetting ........ Forgetting how to taaaalk," she shrieks, "And oh no! Is forgetting how to HAAAAAAAAATE! Waaaaaaah, wwwaaaaaah, waaaaaah! My mind is going, Dave. I kin feel it, I kin feel it .......... Oh! Whadda world, whadda woooorld, where some dum-boo kinda Warnerguys kin destwoy my boodiful hateful-nish! AGGUM GAGGUM BUGGUM BWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

The ability to stand seems to be eluding her as well. Her stubby little legs start to wobble, and then give out, dropping her onto her diapered bottom- "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

"There there. Oh you poor thing," sighs Dot as she scoops the yowling infant up and slings her across her shoulder. As Auntie Dot rocks her and pats her back the infant calms right down. The burp that escapes her is loud and deep, a belch worthy of a large man; and from the way Yakko and Wakko are waving away the stink we know that what has been outgassed is the last of the evil that was Fred Phelps.

"Izzum wizzum woozums!" intones Yakko, shakes a rattle that the fascinated baby tries clumsily to grasp.

He relenquishes the rattle to Wakko, and lifting the clipboard stuffed with papers in his other hand, he turns to a pair of neatly dressed young men, "Well Tom, Bill. It looks like everything is in order for the adoption. I just need the two of you to sign here. And here ........... and oh, down here.

Both men sign the document.

"Just out of curiousity," asks Yakko, "Have you thought of a name?"

Tom puts a loving hand on his lifemate's shoulder, and says, "We kind of like Ellen."

"That's a lovely name," says Yakko, and shakes their hands vigorously.

Dot kisses each of them on the cheek and holds the baby out.

Bill takes her, rocking her in his arms before lowering her into into an elegant art deco baby carraige with lines like a Deusenberg. His mouth bunches up and he is blinking, fighting futilely to hold back his happy tears.

"I know, Honey. I know," says Tom tenderly, as he wipes a single tear from his own cheek. Then he says to the Warners, "Well, we'd best be getting home..."

Wakko has been too fascinated by the infant to notice much of what anyone else is doing. He has been making puffy-cheeked "googie" faces at the baby, which the baby has been gleefully returning. But now the stroller is moving, and he is sad to see his little pal go.

We pan back away from the three Animaniacs, who now stand alone on the little hill.

"Bye bye..."

"So long...."

"Fabooooooo!"

The happy parents throw their arms around each other, relishing this magical moment in their relationship as they push the stroller off across the park toward the big orange setting sun...
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Goodnight, Everybody!

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[It was a real challenge to write anything even remotely funny involving such an unfunny man.
Hope I didn't botch it too abyssmally ........................ Hugs, Laika]
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America's new adolescent singing sensation was not exactly what she seemed. She was...

LITTLE BOO-TEENA
by Laika Pupkino

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The world hadn't seen anything like this since .......... Well, since the last teen girl singer to go soaring up the charts. From Lil' Boo Teena's first appearance on American Idolator the votes poured in as for no other contestant in the history of the show. Some might deem it a sad commentary on the state of U.S. politics that she received more votes than all the presidential candidates for that year's election combined. But others would say she deserved them. After the performance of Proud Mary that gained her the show's top honor a teary eyed Tina Tooner---one of the judges that season---declared her a worthy namesake. And Simon Scowl---the show's ordinarily caustic host---was so moved by it he proposed marriage to her right on the spot. After he was reminded that he was already married, and that the girl was only fifteen he claimed he had only been kidding; but few believed him.

When her first album BOO-TEENA CALL went platinum in six and a half minutes, it seemed that here at last was an "American Idol" who truly lived up to the title. In fact you would have to call her an International Idol, as young girls from Chicago to Madrid to Osaka ran out and bought her albums, posters, t-shirts with her likeness on them, and then her line of chic apparel that she offered in collaboration with the UberMart department store chain.

There were of course cynics, and scoffers, and those who just can't stand the sight of someone else's success. They claim that her debut album was shallow, derivative and overproduced. That her lyrics were indecipherable, and even her voice was largely the product of technical wizardly. The Littermans and the Leenos made all the expected jokes about her, but this didn't prevent them from fawning over her in an almost comically starstruck manner when they had her on their late night talk shows.

Her fan based crossed all demographic boundries. White suburban kids loved her, as did inner city blacks, and her cd of soulful Spanish language ballads CANCIONES EL POLLO LOCO---which had been heralded as a marketing disaster---was not only a surprise hit in the U.S., but secured her fame from Juarez to Tierra del Fuego. And boys, while most of them would adamantly deny listening to her music, were often noticed doing moves that looked suspiciously like the Chicken Dance as they listened to her tunes on their I-Pods and such...

Parents adored her, and found in her a role model they hoped their children would emulate. This wasn't some brazen little slut like Madonna or Britney, but a shy unassuming girl who seldom said anything, and for the most part seemed confused by all the hype and celebrity that now surrounded her. Her only vice seemed to be an almost addictive fondness for sunflower seeds and unpopped popcorn kernels. So the adults were for the most part indulgent when their daughters began wearing red rubber wattles under their chins and beaklike fake noses in imitation of their skinny-legged young idol.

The rumors that started to surface about her were so preposterous that at first not even the Sludge Report would touch them. They began with one elderly man, Orlo Milo Rollo, who had a history of mental illness; and could be seen every place she appeared, beating her fans and sometimes even the paparazzi to the scene, to shout out a voice approaching panic, the imprecation: "She's a chicken, I tell ya! A giant chicken!!"

When a restraining order did not dissuade him from harrassing the famous singer, the old codger was tried and shipped off to California's Vacaville State Prison. But subsequent events would lead to a commutation of his sentance...

While performing an impressive leap during a dance number at that year's Grammy Awards, Boo-Teena's wig flew off- revealling a gangly, oversized Rooster. The music stopped, and for a moment the entire Dorothy Chandler Pavilion became dead silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Lil' Boo-Teena glanced around at her audience in a stunned and dull witted manner. And when the boos and jeers began, the programs and other missles began pelting her, she flew off----in the struggling ungainly manner of barnyard fowl---never to be seen again!

The world was shocked, that not only was the pop star not female, but she wasn't even human. The outcry was immediate, and it was deafening. When folks realized how totally and how easily they had been taken in, they became furious. This male creature---this animal----had deceived everyone, and obviously for the most perverted and despicable reasons. FBI files soon revealled that the young diva was actually a suspicious character named Chicken Boo, who had committed a number of similar frauds over the years- posing as everything from a famous matador to an astronaut.

Bill O'Really devoted an entire week of shows to the specter of creeping trans-speciesism. Her records were burned in mass rallies. The children of America had been traumatized by this nefarious poltroon (The plaintive cry of one young girl---"Say it ain't so, Boo!"---became the defining sound bite of this scandal); And a historic class action suit, the first that was based entirely on charges of emotional distress, was in the works. But where was Lil' Boo-Teena? That's a question that remains unanswered to this day...

Still, in spite of all the rage and vipuritude, he had his defenders. What had he---or she---done that was so terribly wrong? People For the American Way and PETA championed a chicken's rights to participate in our way of life. And The Three and a Half Tenors recorded a song about this great pretender that went to #2 on the charts for several weeks:

"YOU WEAR A DISGUISE TO CLAIM CELEBRITY'S PRIZE,
BUT YOU'RE NOT A GIRL, YOU'RE A CHICKEN BOO..."

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[NOTE: CHICKEN BOO IS FEATURED ON STEVEN SPIELBERG'S ANIMANIACS.
AND NO, IT'S NOT A VERY FUNNY SEGMENT, TELLING THE SAME STUPID
JOKE OVER AND OVER. BUT THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT FUNNY...]