Inside the Muppet Studio

[theprawncracker]

Hello everyone! So... I said I would be taking a break from writing after WAD... but... I couldn't contain myself. This is planned to be a series of short stories that don't have anything to do with anything really... just for fun. So... enjoy!

 

[theprawncracker]

From the Tongue-in-Cheek Perspective of Kermit the Frog

Step, step, sliiiiide, step, step, slide!

Fozzie slid past.

Gonzo stepped in time.

Step, turn, kick, twist, flash pose!

“And… cut!” shouted the familiar voice of director Kirk Thatcher. The sound of electrical equipment shutting down and cooling off whizzed through the small room. “Great job Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo! That dance never gets old.”

Fozzie shrugged and smiled at me. “And we’ve never had a lesson, right Kermit?” my best friend asked as he laid his paw on my shoulder.

I smirked up at him and nodded. “Someday we’ll probably have to get some,” I told him jokingly.

Gonzo strolled by us with a towel draped casually over the back of his neck. “Why start now?” the weirdo asked. “Besides, who has time for lessons nowadays anyway?”

Kirk waved the three of us off as we stepped out of the small recording studio—a small part of our medium-sized new studio that would lead us to large things.

“He’s right you know, Kermit,” Fozzie told me as we walked down the cluttered hallway.

I looked up at Fozzie. “Hmm?” I asked.

“Gonzo, he’s right,” Fozzie reiterated. “We don’t have time for lessons nowadays.”

“It’s true!” Gonzo shouted, whipping the towel off and slinging it around his shoulder. “I don’t remember the last time we were this busy!”

I smiled wistfully. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Gonzo reached forward coolly and smacked the down button on the elevator. “You’d better believe it,” he said as the elevator doors slid open and the slow tone of Muzak entered the hallway. “We were supposed to be this busy three years ago—but we all know how well that worked.”

Gonzo, Fozzie, and I stepped into the elevator.

“Hey! Hold da door!” someone shouted.

Fozzie extended his paw and held back the doors from sliding closed so Rizzo the Rat could join us in the elevator. “T’anks,” Rizzo said to Fozzie as the door closed behind him.

“No prob-lem!” Fozzie said.

“I disagree, Gonzo,” I told the weirdo before pushing the button of our designated floor. “Where to, Rizzo?”

Rizzo shrugged. “Da commissary—of course!” the rat laughed as I pressed his desired button. “Disagree about what?” he asked me.

“I said Oz was a failure—” Gonzo explained. “Which it was!”

“And I think it all depends on how you look at it,” I added.

“How do ya figure, boss man?” Rizzo asked.

The elevator slowly moved to a stop and the doors opened. Fozzie moved for the exit— “Wrong floor, Fozzie,” I told him.

“Oh, right,” he said sheepishly, stepping back.

“Dios mio, es a party in here, hokay!” Pepe the King Prawn quipped as he joined us inside the increasingly crowded elevator. “It’s not even Elevator Bingo day!”

“What’d you say Rizzo?” I asked the rat.

Rizzo shifted over to make room for Pepe next to him. “I said, ‘How do ya figure, boss man?’”

“How does he figure what?” Pepe asked, throwing himself into the conversation.

“Kermit says that Oz wasn’t a total failure,” explained Fozzie.

“Of course it wasn’t!” Pepe shouted. “Es my biggest role j’et, hokay! Who said it was bad?”

“I did,” Gonzo said proudly.

“How can jou say d’is?” Pepe asked swiftly. “Jour chicken got to be in it!”

Gonzo stared down at the prawn, the towel still dangling on his shoulder. “Yeah, but no one liked it!”

“Well I wouldn’t say that…” I mumbled.

“Si, my mommy liked it!” Pepe said.

“Your muthah lives in the middle of da ocean!” Rizzo argued.

“Jou don’t know that!” Pepe said. “My tell-all does not come out until de Novembers, hokay!”

The elevator stopped again and all of us groaned in unison. “We’re never getting down,” I said.

“I’m nevah gonna get to eat!” Rizzo added.

The doors slid open and Animal and the Swedish Chef joined our close elevator family—very close. “Hoor-de-hoo,” Chef said, greeting us with a wave.

“Hel-lo!” Animal growled happily.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be in da kitchen?” Rizzo asked, elbowing the Chef’s rather round belly.

“Ya,” Chef said with a nod. “Ders floor foor, froogy,” he told me, holding up four fingers for me.

I nodded and pressed the button for him. “Well we’re certainly moving now,” I said.

“That’s what happens when you press that button, Kermit,” Fozzie told me, poking his head around Chef to make himself seen.

My face scrunched up tight—my doctor tells me that my face muscles are my most exercised. “I meant we’re doing a lot of projects now—good projects too, no one can argue that!”

“Well Miss Piggy ain’t here yet,” Rizzo said.

“Yeah, I’m sure she could argue that she doesn’t get enough screen time,” Gonzo said with a chuckle.

“C’mon guys,” I told them as most of them—all but Fozzie, actually—laughed at Piggy’s expense. “She’s been very generous about sharing air time.”

“Yeah, she hasn’t hogged it much at all!” Fozzie joked.

“Foz-zie!” I said, wincing. “Not you too!”

Fozzie stared down at his feet in shame. “I had to make the joke, Kermit! It’s a real problem I have…”

“However,” Rizzo interjected, “she and a certain frog are de only two with dressing rooms d’at actually open!”

“And whose fault is that, mister maintenance crew foreman—er… fore-rat?” I asked Rizzo with a smirk.

The elevator stopped again. We all groaned again. “How many more people can we fit in here?” I asked rhetorically.

“Good question!” Gonzo shouted as the doors opened—I couldn’t see him behind everyone else. “Let’s try it!”

“Ooh, an experiment?” Dr. Bunsen Honeydew asked as he and Beaker added themselves to the elevator equation. “Interesting, what is our hypothesis?”

“I hypothesize that we won’t try out this experiment,” I said forcefully as the doors closed behind the bumbling scientists as the squeezed into the corner. “What floor?”

“Hardwood, please,” Bunsen said seriously.

Beaker shook his head. “Mee me mo,” he said, holding up four fingers for me.

“It’s not my fault,” Rizzo muttered from somewhere near the bottom of the elevator.

“Meep mee me?” Beaker asked.

“I did!” Rizzo said.

“What isn’t your fault?” Bunsen asked curiously.

“Main-ten-ance!” Animal shouted.

“Nooo!” the Chef declared, shaking his head forcefully. “Mousey noo leek-a der foor! Mousey leek-a der feef!”

“No, no, no,” Rizzo said irritably. “I want floor four! Not five!”

“Well we’re stopping at five anyway,” Fozzie said. I couldn’t see him, but I did see his paw sticking up from the group and pointing at the floor reading above our heads.

“Jou can’t be serious, hokay,” Pepe groaned.

“Great! More people to cram in!” Gonzo declared giddily. “I’m just barely crammed into the corner now! Imagine what’ll happen when more people come on! Ha ha!”

The doors slid open. “Who is it?” Rizzo asked. “I can’t see a t’ing!”

“So I said to her, ‘Moi does not care if vous are a so-called Oscar-winner, moi does not work with—’ Kermie! Umm… Bernie, I’ll hafta call you back…”

Miss Piggy swung her hair to the side of her head and slid her cell phone somewhere hidden. “Oh, Kermie! There you—”

The elevator doors slid shut quickly.

I shook my head and pressed the “door-open” button in front of me (nearly pressed up against me!).

“HI-YA!”

Luckily I was pressed up against the wall of the elevator and Miss Piggy’s chop didn’t connect with me—but it did hit a few unlucky elevator patrons in the middle.

“Hmph!” Piggy said, lifting her snout up in the air proudly. “Close the door on moi, will ya?”

I shook my head—barely, since I didn’t have much room. “Piggy, honey, I’m sorry but I just don’t think we have room in here for you,” I said in my sweetest, most sincere “Miss Piggy I love you” voice.

She didn’t buy it.

“What?” she shouted. “Is that a fat joke, frog?”

I panicked (wouldn’t you?). “No—Miss Piggy, that’s not—I didn’t mean to—I would never imply that—uh oh…”

“Let me at ‘im! Where’s that frog?” Piggy shouted before charging into the elevator.

“If my calculations are correct,” I heard Bunsen mumble as the doors started to slide shut. “There’s no way this elevator could possibly—”

The doors had barely closed before the elevator cable snapped and the lights went out and we plummeted, screaming, down five floors (six if you count the basement).

Thank heavens for the Muppet Labs Inflato-Elevator Bed resting safely in the basement to break our fall and not break any of us. I had never been happier that Jello-filled mattresses had been invented before that moment.

“Well now I’m nevah getting to the cafeteria!” Rizzo shouted in the darkness.

“Kermit?” I heard Fozzie ask wearily.

I groaned and tried to lift up my head—I think Fozzie might’ve actually been on top of me. “Yes Fozzie?”

“I think we just became falling stars,” Fozzie said.

Everyone groaned and I sighed softly. “I guess we have an answer to that debate now,” I said.

“What debate?” everyone asked in unison.

~/~/~/~/~

Statler and Waldorf sat in a small room with lots of tiny televisions adorning the walls.

“Did you get that one?” Statler asked.

“Yup!” Waldorf said, pressing a button that rewound a television—showing the entire scene in the elevator again.

“Think it’ll work on the website?” Statler asked, staring up at the T.V. as the video replayed itself.

“Nah,” Waldorf said. “Who would find that funny?”

“Who finds any of this funny?”

“Good point!”

The two old men laughed at my expense as I closed the door to their studio and shook my head, trying not to get my bandages caught in the door.

 

[TogetherAgain]

<Cracks up!>

Oh, that is AWESOME. VERY well written, as always, and very FUNNY, as always, and just... Oy, I love ya, Prawnie.

And I KNEW that break wouldn't last.

 

[redBoobergurl]

Oh that is just classic Muppet humor at it's best Prawnie! I love it! And more importantly, I love that you are writing!

 

[Muppetfan44]

Very nice. Great short story!

 

[Beauregard]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I LOVE it! I am on a Prawnathon today! (Which sounds painful, and actually ISN'T!)

 

[theprawncracker]

From the Profile of Pepe the King Prawn

Everyday—the same thing! Everyday! It’s monotonous! Unbelievable! Everyday the same thing!

Well… except today.

Today we’re in some dark studio with sets and celebrities running around like chickens—and we have chickens too, which doesn’t really help things—unless of course you’re Gonso (and I hope you’re not).

“Hey, Pepe!”

“Dios mio!” I shouted, jumping off the floor. I turned around and stared into the glasses of Scooper. “Wha’d’re’jou’doing?” I shouted. “Jou scared me!”

Scooper lowered his head slightly. “Sorry about that,” he said. He drew in the clipboard he was holding against his dark green jacket. “But you’re wanted on set!”

“What for?” I asked impatiently—when the monotonous breaks, impatience comes out to play.

Our go-fer squirmed slightly. “For… for the next scene,” Scooper told me.

I stared at Scooper. “…Es Uma in it?” I inquired.

Scooper’s head tilted to the side. “She… uh… she shot her scenes yesterday, Pepe—she’s not here anymore,” he explained.

I sighed, I knew this, but, hey, a prawn can hope, si? “Hokay, fine,” I said, walking towards the set, “I’ll settle for squeaky’s girlfriend.”

“She and Beaker are on their lunch break,” Scooper said as he ran to catch up with me.

I grumbled my best annoyed grumble. “H’of course d’ey are! Pepe doesn’t need de ladies, hokay! No, no, he’s fine with Fotzie.”

Scooper glanced down at his clipboard. “Well that’s good,” he said, “‘cause he’s in the scene!”

I rolled my eyes. “UN-believable,” I muttered. “Where’s Kirk? D’is isn’t in my contract, hokay!”

Papers flipped as Scooper ran through the contents of his clipboard. “Actually, it is!” Scooper told me. He put the page on the clipboard in front of my face. “See, right there,” Scooper said, pointing to page. “‘Will work with bears when no women are available.’ Signed… by you.”

I read the contract again, just to make sure. He was right. I glared up at the go-fer. “Why do jou have d’is, anyway?”

Scooper shrugged. “Kermit thought it would be a good idea for me to hold everyone’s contracts,” he told me.

“Kermin?” I asked. “Where es he?”

“He’s waiting on the set,” Scooper said. “Where you should be!”

“Well go get him,” I told Scooper.

“What?”

“Go get him!” I repeated. “Jou’re de go-fer—go-fer him, hokay!”

Scooper sighed. “Okay, I’ll go get him—but you have to put your costume on for the scene, okay?”

“Hokay,” I agreed. Scooper scampered off to find Kermin. The deal was easy on my end—just a sock hat and four mittens and I’m ready to go (I was already wearing my red hoodie and yellow shirt—and no pants, if the womens were wondering).

I slipped on the mittens and hat as Scooper brought Kermin back to me. He did not look too happy. “Pepe what is it? We’re on a very tight schedule and we need to get this scene shot!” the froggy told me.

“I can’t shoot d’is scene, Kermin!” I shouted. “D’ere’s no womens in de scene, hokay!”

Kermin scrunched up his face—he always looked so funny when he did this. “Miss Piggy is in this scene, Pepe!”

“…What does d’is have to do with de womens?” I asked.

“WHAT?” I heard a very angry, very Piggy voice shout.

Kermin instinctively ducked and Scooper did the same. I gulped loudly. I could feel the bacon breath on the back of my neck. I slowly turned around and stared into Miss Piggy’s baby-blue eyes. “Erm…” I tried to speak. “Hola.”

“I heard what you said,” the porker growled down at me.

“Uhh… what did I say?” I asked innocently while trying to come up with an excuse.

“What does moi have to do with you working with a woman?” she hissed.

I hesitated… “I meant d’at jou are not de womens! Jou are a lady, hokay!”

Miss Porky glared down at me. “You’re lucky.”

“Grathius.”

“If your book wasn’t paying for moi’s shoes, you’d be karate chopped right now,” she said.

“D’is es why it came first, hokay!” I said with a snicker.

“Whatever,” Piggy said, rolling her eyes. “Can we just shoot this scene, please?”

A whistle blew somewhere.

“Nope,” Scooper told the pig. “Lunch break.”

“Great,” Porky said sarcastically. “C’mon Kermie, buy moi lunch.”

Kermin frowned. “If only because you asked so nicely, Miss Piggy.”

“Why we take so many lunch breaks?” I asked Scooper as the frog and the pig went off to do something that would surely make me sick.

Scooper shrugged. “It’s a union thing.”

“Junion?” I asked. “What junion?”

“Hoor de unie bor de snackie do!” said the Chef as he bobbled up to me and Scooter.

I didn’t really think the Chef was Swedish, but then again, I’m not really Spanish, so it’s okay, okay. “Jour junion?” I asked the raving chef.

“Jour what?” asked an annoyingly ratty voice. It was a fitting voice for Ritzo, though.

“Junion!” I shouted at the rat. “His junion!”

“What’s d’at?” Ritzo asked me. “A juicy onion? Ha!”

“Jou’re dumb, hokay!” I told him. “Why are jou here anyway?”

Ritzo shrugged that cheeky little shrug of his. “I follow da food,” he said, motioning towards the Chef. “No mattah how bad it is! Heh heh!”

I stared at Ritzo, and then looked at the Chef. “What junion?” I asked again.

The Swedish Chef started to babble on about something I couldn’t understand and Scooper looked at me. “The Union of Gluttonous Laughing Yodelers,” he explained.

“U… G… L… Y… HA! U.G.L.Y.!” Ritzo laughed.

I shook my head. “Jour junion jodels?” I asked the Chef.

“What?” Ritzo asked.

“I said, ‘jour junion jodels!’” I shouted. “Listen, hokay!”

“I am listenin’! But… good grief! Talk about an accent!”

“Jou’re going to have an accident if jou’re not careful, hokay!” I growled, preparing for battle with the rat.

“Noooo!” shouted the Chef. “Noo, noo, noo! Noo hitsa de ratskie! Ya, ya. Bloo hoor de loonge!”

“Fine,” I said, giving up my fight with Ritzo. “We’ll do lunch.”

“Can I come?” Scooper asked.

“Sure, we need someone less recognizable to keep the paparazzi off our tails,” Ritzo said.

Scooper frowned. “That’s not what I—”

“Si, si, jou can,” I told the go-fer. “Let’s go somewhere fancy, hokay!”

“Pft, are you payin’?” Ritzo asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Kirk is. He owes me.”

“For what?” Ritzo asked.

I shrugged. “Somet’ing, I’m sure. Besides… I have his credit card.” I flashed Kirk’s plastic in front of Ritzo, Scooper, and the Chef.

“Oh, very nice!” Rizzo said, patting my back.

“Grathius amigo,” I said.

“Well can we get going already?” Scooper asked.

“Hold on,” Ritzo said, “I forgot I told Gonzo I’d go to lunch with him.”

“UNbelievable! C’mon, Ritzo! Every time! Every time jou do d’is, hokay!” I shouted.

“Oh come on,” Ritzo said. “It’ll take t’ree minutes—tops!”

“Fine,” I said. “Just don’t let him bring de chicken—es molting season!”

The Chef, at the mention of chickens, shouted something and ran off in the opposite direction. We all shrugged it off and Scooper pointed ahead of us. “I don’t think it’ll be too much of a problem not having Camilla with us,” he said.

Our eyes followed the path of Scooper’s pointing finger to where Gonso and Carmina were obviously having a fight.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rizzo shouted as he tried to break up the bickering. “What’s goin’ on?”

Gonso sighed. “Camilla is upset because I told ‘Cheeky Chickens Weekly’ that she was an internet star—and they took it the wrong way,” he said.

“Brawk bawk bagawk baw!” Carmina clucked furiously.

“Please,” I said to Carmina, “I don’t t’ink anyone will call jou a hot internet chick.”

“I would!” Gonso shouted.

“Si, but jou’re a weirdo,” I told the weirdo.

“Brawk bagawk!” Carmina shouted at me.

I gasped. “I am not!”

“What’d she say?” Ritzo asked.

“I don’t know…” I admitted. “But I’m sure it was mean, hokay.”

Scooper rolled his eyes. “And you wonder why no women want to be in scenes with you.”

“C’mon, es a chicken!” I said. “She’s not a womens!”

“BRAWK!” Carmina squawked, running towards me, beak first.

The sharp orange beak landed on me more times than I could count. As she pecked, her white feathers flew off of her body—molting season, you know. By the time she retreated off of me there weren’t any feathers sitting on her now naked body.

I rubbed my head. “Dios mio… I did not order de chicken strip, hokay!”

Gonso’s eyelids waggled back and forth. “I should have! Ha ha ha!”

“BRAWK!” Carmina clucked. She ran off, naked and near tears, through the crowded production studio.

“Kirk! Kirk!” Gonso shouted as he chased after his chicken. “Keep the cameras on!” Gonso laughed wildly as he ran.

Ritzo, Scooper, and I exchanged glances. “Well what now?” Scooper asked.

I shrugged. “Lunch, hokay.”

Ritzo and Scooter shrugged too. “Okay.”

As we left, Kermin and Miss Piggy came back from their disgusting lunch date. Kermin looked around the studio, now empty of us and full of a shouting chicken and weirdo. He shook his head slowly. “It’ll be Christmas before we get this special finished,” he said.

Miss Piggy ran her hair through her fingers and examined herself in her handheld mirror. “As long as that’s not what you get moi for Christmas,” she said.

Kermin smirked. “How about a book deal instead?” he asked.

The pig slammed her mirror shut. “Cancel Pepe’s first, then we’ll talk.”

The frog smiled. “Think of it this way… he’ll be out of our hair for the promotional tour.”

Miss Porky smirked. “Very good point, mon cher.”

 

[TogetherAgain]

<GLOMP!>

I didn’t really think the Chef was Swedish, but then again, I’m not really Spanish, so it’s okay, okay. “Jour junion?" I asked the raving chef.

Dis line makes me laugh so much d'at I had to put down my hot chocolate, hokay. (H'I didn't want to burn my tongue twice in one hour.)

De whole t'ing is very very funny, hokay! Poor Carmina. Gonso needs a good slap upside de head for h'asking Kirk to keep de cameras rolling while de chicken was h'about to cry, hokay? H'and de frog/pig interaction is also very very funny. KIRK! CANCEL DE CREDIT CARD!

MORE PLEASE!

 

[AnimatedC9000]

Pfft! O. MG. XD

Ry, you never cease to amuse me. More please!

~ AnimatedC(aitlyn)

 

[Muppetfan44]

haha!

Very nice, it's definitely interesting, and frickin hilarious, to see the through Pepe's eyes!

Totally loving these shorts, keep them up!