Happy news! FX and Liz, sent to Mobius to enlist the help of Sonic the Hedgehog, don’t need to come back home! Everything is fine without them! And on that happy note Grant T Ettinger’s late-90s fan fiction FX Down To Mobius came to its end. And now, with a last host sketch, my slightly-later-90s Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan fiction based on it comes to its end.
The whole of this MiSTing of FX Down To Mobius is here. After this week’s segment I’ll explain the riffs that seem too obscure to stand unexplained.
[ 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. ]
[ SOL. CROW, JOEL, TOM standing behind the desk ]
JOEL: Made it through another one.
CROW: Yup.
TOM: Which just means they’ll send us more in the future.
CROW: Yup.
JOEL: Kind of takes the sense of joy out of it.
CROW: Yup.
[ COMMUNICATION SIGN starts flashing ]
JOEL: Oh, we’re getting a communication and it’s not from the Mads
and it’s from outside the ship; Cambot, put it on the Hex Field
View Screen.
[ Hex Field View Screen opens; revealing inside of a 50’s style cheap SF film spaceship and FX Ferret inside, leaning dangerously far back in a Star Trek style chair, spinning and throwing a pencil up and catching it again. ]
JOEL, TOM, CROW: Freddy!
FREDDY: [ Still playing with the pencil. ] Yup; you can call me
Freddy, or you can call me Fred…if you want, you can call me
FX; just don’t call me collect or after nine o’clock, eh?
JOEL: Um…right. So, Freddy, what’ve you been up to since your
adventures going to Mobius?
FREDDY: Oh. You know. Stuff.
CROW: [ Under his breath ] I bet his web page has pictures of
personally important toothbrushes.
FREDDY: [ Points at Crow ] Dude! Good one! [ Turns to look at
his computer; pencil drops on him, he fumbles, falls onto floor. ]
Whoops!
JOEL: Uhm…
TOM: Are you okay in there?
FREDDY: Yeah, yeah…happens more than you’d think. [ He gets the
chair back in place, sits, leaning dangerously far back in it
again. ] So what’cha call me up for?
CROW: You called us, Fred.
FREDDY: Yes, I did. Guys, I got a deal. If you help out with our war
against the evil purple robot ferrets from space, we’ll help you
out with your little war against whoever it is you’re fighting.
TOM: That’s an awfully nice offer, Freddy.
CROW: But we’re not at war with anybody.
JOEL: And you aren’t either.
FREDDY: Oh! [ Slaps his forehead, falls out of his chair. ] Ow.
I’m always forgetting that.
JOEL: Uh…would you like…uh…a better chair, maybe?
FREDDY: Thanks, man, but I am set. We’re really not at war?
CROW: No, you guys whipped the Pheorians in straight sets.
TOM: You, meaning, your planet once you and Liz left.
JOEL: Yeah, hey, where is Liz?
FREDDY: Gosh, I dunno…I saw her sometime this week. I think.
[ ALARM on FREDDY’s ship goes off. ]
FREDDY’S MAGIC VOICE: Tachypomp overload. Explosive vehicle failure
in ten seconds.
JOEL: Yikes! Freddy, you have an escape pod or something?
FREDDY: For what?
FREDDY’S MAGIC VOICE: Explosive vehicle failure in five seconds.
JOEL: For that!
FREDDY: Nah; sometimes these things go away by themselves.
FREDDY’S MAGIC VOICE: Overload cleared. Vehicle returned to normal.
[ ALARM stops. ]
FREDDY: Dudes! Sorry, guys. I gotta be going.
CROW: To where?
FREDDY: Hah! Sharp one, little…what are you, some kind of magic
goldfish? Anyway, catch you on the flip side.
JOEL: Yeah, we’ll see you around, Freddy.
[ Hex Field View Screen closes ]
TOM: Have to admit, he’s not getting too worked up about the little
things.
CROW: Probably live a long, happy life that way.
JOEL: Looks like.
[ MADS sign flashes ]
JOEL: Well, what do you think, sirs?
[ D13. DR. FORRESTER and TV’s FRANK (still dressed as Dr. Joyce
Brothers) are sitting in chairs arranged like the center on
The $10,000 Pyramid (and its siblings). DR. FORRESTER looks to
the camera; TV’s FRANK does not. Both read their dialogue without
paying attention to the other. ]
FRANK: Trumpeteer Swan. Ceylon.
DR.F: Ah, Joel; you’ve gotten to the end of another story.
[ Gameshow winning ‘DING’ sounds. ]
FRANK: Ontario. Elba. Smallpox.
DR.F: One of these days, I promise, we’ll give you somebody’s
second Sonic fanfic.
[ Another winning ‘DING’ sounds. ]
FRANK: Tigris. Yellowstone. Transatlantic balloon.
DR.F: No one can hold out forever, not against these experiments.
[ Another winning ‘DING’ sounds. ]
FRANK: Skylab. Big Thicket. Plankton.
DR.F: And you will come pleading for mercy, I promise you.
[ Another winning ‘DING’ sounds. ]
FRANK: Hawai’i. Jupiter. Owls.
DR.F: To use the vernacular…I’ll get you next time, Gadget. Next
time!
[ Another winning ‘DING’ sounds. ]
FRANK: Madiera. Rock art. Bioluminescence.
DR.F: Just push the button, Frank.
[ One last ‘DING’ sounds before it is drowned out in game show
winning music; "$10,000" flashes on screen and TV’S FRANK jumps
up and down, and forces DR. FORRESTER to jump up and down with
him. ]
FRANK: We win! We win! We win!
DR.F: [ Growls ]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its related characters and
situations are trademarks of and Copyright Best Brains, inc.
"Sonic the Hedgehog" and its related characters are trademarks
of and Copyright Sega, Archie comics, and DIC. Use of copyrighted
and trademarked material is for entertainment and satiric purposes
only; no infringement on the original copyrights or trademarks
held by Best Brains Inc, Sega, Archie Comics, or DIC is intended
or should be inferred. "FX Down to Mobius" is Copyright G. T.
Ettinger III and is used with permission. Dr. Joyce Brothers
is probably copyright the Game Show Network and maybe all of
the world’s talk shows. This MiSTing is intended solely for
personal entertainment and is not meant to be an insult to the
creators or fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog products, nor to G.
T. Ettinger III or any other person or organization referenced
in any way. The other day I was downtown and a person walked by
with a boombox that was blasting the Simon and Garfunkel classic
"The Sound of Silence." I think that summarizes what it means to
live in a city.
> "Say," Sally began as she closed her door, "Shouldn’t
> you be in the lookout tower?" she asked.
> Tails tried to stay calm, but couldn’t.
[ The End! ]
Whether this sketch could possibly have worked depends on how well Freddy got cast. I don’t have a casting recommendation myself. The set I figured would look something like Winky’s spaceship from Manhunt In Space. Liz was not in the Hex Field View Screen because giving her something to do would make the whole sketch too long, and back then I would try to keep the run time to about two minutes. Also the longer you center a character who’s being a doof the more you test your audience unless the casting is really charming.
TV’s Frank playing The $10,000 Pyramid is a continuation of his playing Password by himself at the end of the Invention Exchange. I wrote back then that I didn’t remember why I wrote him to start doing that and, with nearly a half-year’s further time to explore the question, I think the link is that the invention had TV’s Frank as a Dr Joyce Brothers type, and she had been a regular game show panelist as well as, back in the 50s, grand-prize winner on The $64,000 Question.
TV’s Frank being way into something goofy while Dr Forrester tries to make threats is always a reliable host sketch outline.
That Simon-and-Garfunkel thing really did happen.
What will I post next? Oh, I don’t know.
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