Saving Sesame Street

[minor muppetz]

Chapter 8

It was the next morning. Everybody was packing up.

"I hope I can find a new places to open the store", said Alan.

"And I hope I can open a new laundromat", said Leela.

Oscar was packing his Sloppy Jaloppy, with his trash can in the back seat. Fluffy's nose was out the trash can, making elephant noises.

"Don't worry, Fluffy", said Oscar, "we'll be staying at the city dump. Rates are six dollars a night."

Grover walked past the trailer for Worthington Cookies, while carrying a big stack of suitcases.

"Hey!", said Charlie Worthington, "You look like the kind of person I should hire to work at my factory."

"I do not think so", said Grover, "I do not think I can work for the company responsible for tearing down my home."

"But we have all kinds of jobs", said Worthington, "baker, delivery boy, secretary, janitor, vice president...."

Mr. Johnson then showed up, "Hey, he said he didn't want to work for you!"

Bert and Ernie carried their suitcases.

"It feels like we've been living here forever", said Ernie.

"I think we have", said Bert.

"Well, Snuffy, thanks for letting me sleep over in your cave", said Big Bird.

"It's my pleasure, Bird", said Snuffy.

"I am going to miss this place."

"Hey!", said the Count, "You all can stay in my castle. The more the merrier!"

"I don't think I want to do that", said Ernie.

"You all are welcome to stay at my ranch", said Forgetful Jones.

"You know, I don't ever remember being at your ranch before", said Gladys.

"Who said anything about a ranch?", said Forgetful Jones.

"You just did", said Gladys.

"Oh yeah", said Forgetful, "I forgot."

A construction crew started to show up.

"Well, Sully, I miss being in the construction business", said Biff.

"We miss you all, too", said another construction worker, "you should come back."

"No, no", said Biff, Sully shaking his head in agreement, "not unless this street does not get torn down."

Cookie Monster ran to the mayors office.

"Hey, hey, Mr. Mayor! Cancel plans!", shouted Cookie Monster.

"I should cancel plans to keep toxic waste out of our rivers?", said the mayor.

"Uh, no", said Cookie, "I meant cancel plans to replace Sesame Street with Cookie F..."

"Wait, haven't I seen you somewhere before?", asked the Mayor.

"Uh....", said Cookie Monster.

"I know, you're that monster driver to got me as far away from Sesame Street as possible. Will somebody throw him out?"

"Wait! Wait!", said Cookie Monster, "just hear me out!"

Cut to Cookie and the mayor outside of the building.

"...And that's why Sesame Street must remain Sesame Street!"

"Interesting, Mr. Monster", said the mayor, "but the fact is that Sesaem Street...."

"...has no educational value", said the mayor and Cookie in unison.

"Look", said Cookie Monster, "Sesame Street has a lot of educational value. Me learn that C is for cookie, that cookie is sometimes food, that fuzzy and orange is as good as fuzzy and blue. More importantly, me learn that friends and homes are more important than cookies. Me might even give up cookies from now on. And me learn that Worthington Cookies plans to overcharge cookies...."

"Wait, what?", asked the mayor.

"Oh wait", said Cookie, "that one just nightmare me had."

"Yes", said the mayor, "but some nightmares come true. We need to get to Sesame Street and stop them!"

"But what about educational value?", asked Cookie.

"You've just convinced me", said Cookie, "but if this company overcharges on cookies, local taxes will have to go up again, and I might not get reelected."

Back on Sesame Street, everyone stood by and watched while the construction was about to get ready.

"Well, this is it", said Gordon, "there's no hope now."

"My Rubber Duckie can't take this", said Ernie, squeaking his duckie out of control.

"I'm glad Bernice found a good place to stay", said Bert, "I don't think she'd like to see this."

"Bye bye, Sesame Street", said Big Bird.

"Start the countdown, Mr. Foreman", said Charlie Worthington.

"With pleasure", said Mr. Foreman, getting out his megaphone, "Begin construction in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2..."

"Wait!", shouted the mayor, running to Sesame Street with Cookie Monster, "Stop the construction!"

"Yes! Stop! Stop!", shouted Cookie.

"But we have a deal", said Worthington.

"Not anymore", said the mayor, taking Charlie Worthington's contract and tearing it up, "It's one thing to tear down a street to make a factory, but not one that's very educational...."

"I guess that means we can keep our homes", said Abby.

"YAY!", shouted everyone.

"And I guess we can have our old jobs back", said Biff.

"Of course you can", said Mr. Foreman, handing Biff and Sully their hardhats back, "welcome back to the construction business."

"Anyway", said the mayor, "I will not let you tear down such an educational street, and I will especially not allow a company that will overcharge on..."

"Wait, how did you know I was going to overcharge?", asked Worthington.

"You mean that wasn't just dream?", said Cookie.

"Oh, you believed a dream", said Worthington.

"But you just admitted you were going to overcharge", said the mayor.

"Well", said Worthington, "I was going to charge ten more dollars per cookie than I do now."

"That pricey even for cookies", said Cookie.

"and I found a New York loophole allowing me to underpay employees, and I want more factories so I can pay less on delivering costs... Wait a minute, why am I telling you all this? I only had to admit to overcharging..."

"Well it's too late", said the mayor, "Is there a cop around here?"

"I'm a cop".

"Arrest him", said the mayor.

The cop arrested him.

"And I was hoping you'd just be a designated villain", said the mayor.

"Well, our street is saved", said Big Bird.

"Thanks to Cookie Monster", said Telly.

The cast then had a party, singing a song about their street being saved.

During this song, Oscar was back on Sesame Street.

"I like that I can live here again, but I hate all this happiness", said Oscar.

Slimey was jumping for joy.

"This is not a good time for you to be happy, Slimey.

After the song, Alan brought out a very large cookie cake.

"Cookie Monster, we all think that you deserve this", said Chris.

"We really do", said Maria.

"Yeah", said Murray.

"And it's all for you", said Prairie Dawn.

"Ohh, cookie cake!", said Cookie Monster, "but me give up cookies."

"But you've earned it", said Gina.

"This street almost destroyed because of cookies, me no can eat cookies anymore!"

Chris cut out a little chunk of the cake.

"Not even just a tiny bite?", asked Chris,

"That's one, one tiny little bite!", said The Count.

"Oh, if you insist", said Cookie, taking a bite...

And then deciding...

"COWABUNGA!"

Cookie then ate the rest of the cookie cake really fast.

"I knew he wouldn't change his love of cookies forever", laughed Hoots.

Forgetful Jones, Clementine, and Buster then walked by.

"Hey, this cookie factory doesn't look like a cookie factory", said Forgetful.

"That's because they didn't replace this street with a cookie factory", said Herry.

"Oh yeah", said Forgetful, "I forgot."

The End

 

[minor muppetz]

And now for the "behind the scenes" post of this story.

I had this idea for awhile, when I had the idea to make it an April fools joke. I had a lot of the basic ideas in my head, though most of the initial basic ideas I had happened in the first four chapters. Such ideas as Cookie Monster transporting the mayor and having a nightmare came after I started, and with both of those ideas I kept changing my mind on what I wanted with these ideas.

For the part with Cookie transporting the mayor, I pretty much ended up writing what all I originally had in mind, but I also considered having the driver NOT be Cookie Monster - it was to be set-up to appear as if Cookie Monster would be doing the driving, in a fake mustache and surfer dude attitude, and afterwords the real Cookie Monster would have shown up, ready to trick the mayor. I think I would have had the Cookie Monster-like driver end up taking the mayor in the wrong direction by accident (and ending up on a way-too-busy highway).

For the nightmare, when Cookie got banished, I was going to have him be banished to a land of no cookies at all. He would have been creeped out by red-eyed white-furred zombie monsters. Then I got the "red eyes in the dark" idea, and was debating over whether to make those be cookies obsessed with eating monsters (in fact when I first read about the segment where Cookie Monster had a dream where he met Monster Cookie, I expected Monster Cookie to be a cookie who ate monsters) or to end the nightmare before we could see who or what they are. Another idea was to NOT have Cookie banished anywhere, but to still be chased by a giant monster-eating cookie.

In my initial April fools thread, it said that Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, Oscar, Grover, and The Count would be the main characters, but with the exception of Cookie Monster (and to a certain extent Grover), most of those characters - along with a lot of characters - don't really get a lot of dialogue or do much, Telly and Prairie get a bit of screen time for a couple of chapters, Biff and Sully get a subplot which I didn't do much with, and Forgetful Jones kind of gets a running gag which is really his whole character (though for the dream sequence I thought about having him remember that Cookie Monster is the reason they were all homeless).

I always planned on having the mayor and Charlie Worthington be designated villains, if there was to be anything villainy about them. When trying to figure out a way to end it, I decided to have Worthignton reveal that he planned to open a fourth factory to reduce delivery costs (since there'd be less money for gas to transport things), which isn't really a corrupt corporate executive decision, as well as over-charging on cookies (not really a big deal, a usual business decision, though it's not said if it's to make up for lost profits or just to be greedy) and under-paying employees (which would be illegal). I also temporarily thought of giving the mayor a Tex Richman-styled backstory: That he used to live on Sesame Street and never learned anything, only for the street to have educational value the moment his family moved away from the street.

I know that in Sesame Street All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever it's said that Oscar's trash can is city property so he has to choose to move, and I decided to ignore that plot point (if this was a real movie they probably wouldn't care about continuity like this, if they were even aware of that), though I did have a passing reference to this special as one of the two previous times (the other being the Sesame Street Live show "Save Our Street") that the street was in danger of being torn down.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Really good. But did Mr. Johnson just stick up for Grover in one of his lines? Something to think about.

 

[minor muppetz]

Really good. But did Mr. Johnson just stick up for Grover in one of his lines? Something to think about.

You could say that, but my intention was that he didn't want Grover working at yet another place where service could be ruined for him (whether it's Grover baking bad cookies or having a delivery problem or whatever). But maybe I should have had him say "No, he's got ENOUGH jobs!"

And when I came up with the name Charlie Worthington, I hadn't thought of the fact that Grover works for a Charlie.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

I see. Personally, I wouldn't think there'd be any reason Fat Blue would use their services anyway. Just my opinion.