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And I'm back! Nananananana!
Please forgives the lateness in all things WMG. On a very good note, I quit my job for a new one, which is much better suited to what I want to do and equal parts awesome and terrifying. But with that said, I have another one shot for you!
This time, I'm pulling from my fave adult cartoon show of Archer, which dear god if you haven't seen it, watch it! Netflixers, you now can watch all five seasons; season six is all new on Thursdays on FX. This little gem is from that season and by all accounts, is pretty much a bottle episode, but an awesome one. Here's a review of the episode (obviously I can't get it to you, unless you all have Amazon), so you'll get the gist.
In the meantime, here's the first part!
Title: Team Building
Genre: Parody
Inspiration: "Vision Quest", Archer, Season 6, ep 5
At 6:30 on a Thursday morning, a high rise office building became the setting for a catastrophe, at least that was how the story was told after the events.
It should have been something simple – Kermit the Frog, leader and director of the famed Muppets, had decided that his group of misfits could use with a little team building, as he called it. They had all just gotten back together nearly a year ago and all it took was one international jewel thief to nearly destroy everything they had worked for.
Maybe it was the insecurity or the jealously that the frog had been feeling towards the amorous doppelgänger or perhaps it was incredulous animosity that he had starting feeling towards his so-called friends, who had conveniently forgotten who he was that had led to this, seemingly ridiculous idea, but an idea it was.
Never the less, Kermit thought it good idea to get everyone together to try and catch up, “team building,” he said, broaching the group about it. “It’s been a while since, well, we’ve all been together, so this will help with…you know. Things.”
That last part was surely directed at them all, at their behavior for failing to see that their true frog had seemingly been replaced with an evil clone, who had nearly broken them apart before trying to kill them all. Granted, Kermit had every right to be upset with them, but there were some that thought he was taking this just a little too hard, especially after the events of them breaking up in the first place. But they were feeling guilty enough as is that they all went ahead and agreed to do it, sending the page to arrange things.
And Scooter Grosse was Kermit’s man through and through, able to find an office space that could hold the lot of them and able to come up with the money to arrange it all, as well as the person who found the best time for the office building to be empty before they got there, which unfortunately just happened to be at seven o’clock in the morning. While many of them were early birds by nature, the hectic lifestyle of a performer usually meant late nights and later mornings.
That was the topic of conversation as Fozzie Bear and the Great Gonzo walked up to the doors of the Hyatton Office complex, grumbling about how they were awake at an ungodly time, on a day they normally were not up early. “I don’t see why he’s so insistent on this,” Gonzo grumbled, rubbing his eyes with one hand, while taking a drink of his Frappuccino with the other. He had a late night the day before and all he had wanted to do was sleep for most of today.
“If you ask me,” Fozzie replied, nodding as he saw Scooter Grosse and Rowlf the Dog coming from the opposite site. “I think he’s still mad about what happened in Europe. Not that I blame him!” He added, hastily once he saw the looks the others were giving him. As much as Kermit had been upset about the whole ordeal, the others – especially those that had been the closest to him – continued to feel like royal class heels whenever the topic was brought up.
“But you know,” the comic continued. “Maybe he feels like…well, maybe we aren’t as close anymore.”
“Hence this whole teambuilding nonsense,” Rowlf muttered. Like Gonzo, he’d had a late night out with most of the Electric Mayhem and much of it had included alcohol, so the dog – who usually handled his liquor better than anyone – wasn’t feeling up to much of anything today.
Scooter kept quiet during the exchange, patiently walking through the automatic doors of the office building. He had chosen the Hyatton because it was a modern building that had very little traffic, which was great for them as they could get rowdy, especially with several hundred of them in one room. He had booked a room on the top floor, the largest conference room that easily fit at least 200 people, which of course was what Scooter was going for; he didn’t mind being there so early, but he certainly counted his large coffee as testament to him being in a better mood than his cohorts.
The lobby of the complex was deserted, not even the secretary was there at this hour, though he didn’t expect to be there anyone at that time anyways. “Is there anything better than a crisp morn?” asked a voice behind them as they walked through the door. Sam the Eagle, their resident moral guardian, was in an annoyingly chipper mood for such an early morning.
“I take it you’ve destroyed a small child’s belief in all things wonderful?” snorted Gonzo.
“I’ll have you know, Gonzo, that I spent a wonderful morning basking in the nature and beauty of God’s creations.”
“Shut up, Sam.” The quartet murmured, making their way towards and then inside the building’s elevator. The last thing any of them wanted was to listen to Sam’s moral righteousness at such an ungodly hour.
“Hold it! Hold the elevator!”
The running and yelling of their resident diva caused both Fozzie and Rowlf to hold open the door for her as she came charging in, huffing and sweeping her blonde curls out of her face. “Merci,” she breathed, waving her coffee at the others in greeting. While seeing Miss Piggy wasn’t a complete surprise, seeing her without Kermit was. The two shared a home, so it was always weird to see one without the other these days.
“No frog to grace our presence?” Gonzo quipped.
“Mon Capitan decided he’d bring treats,” she replied, smoothly. “How else would he manage to get all of us in one building at -” Checking her watch, she groaned. “Six forty-seven in the morning. I’m going to teach that frog a valuable lesson about appropriate timings. And then I’m going to kill him.”
“Want us to hold him for you?” Rowlf asked, jokingly.
Before the diva could retort back, the now six member elevator group heard one last call for the elevator. In the distance they could see – and hear – the huffing and puffing of a low pitched accented voice, though it seemed to be hidden behind a 64 oz Big Gulp. “Oh no,” Scooter said, rapidly pressing the close door button. “It’s not staying open. Oh, the doors are closing, I can’t make them stay open.”
And the doors looked to close, causing the group to sigh, but not before a skinny red arm managed to poke through just in time, followed by two more. “Dios mio!” exclaimed the king prawn known as Pepe as he squeezed through the opening. “I almost thought I’d miss this,” he puffed. “Hey, why is Kermit making us do this so early in the morning? The sun wasn’t even out when I woke up, h’okay?”
“How you manage to see the sun when you live under a rock, I don’t know,” Piggy snarked.
“Hey,” Pepe poked back. “I gets plenty of the suns. How do you think I gets my pretty glow?”
“Your what?” asked Scooter.
“It’s, jou know, my Guatamalaness.”
The others just stared at him. “You did not just turn a country into an adjective,” Sam questioned, giving the prawn an incredulous look.
“This surprises you?” asked Piggy. “Coming from him?”
“Hey, what does that mean?”
“It means you’re an idiot.”
“Hang on…”
The group naturally dissolved into an argument of nonsensical nonsense that would have continued if the elevator hadn’t shaken and grinded to halt, causing the whole group to glance up at the car’s roof. “What was that?” asked Fozzie, timidly.
“That would’ve been the sound of the elevator grinding to a halt,” Scooter whispered.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Gonzo replied, eyes glued to the ceiling.
“Hang on,” Rowlf said, moving to the door. “Fozzie, Gonzo come over here.”
The three attempted to open the elevator doors, hopefully giving them an idea of where exactly they were. “Piggy…” Rowlf stressed.
“What?”
“You…” Fozzie began.
“…should be doing this.” Gonzo finished, causing the other two to laugh.
“Burn,” Scooter chuckled, before shutting up once the diva glared at him.
“We got it!”
“What is this?” Pepe exclaimed, staring at the solid concrete wall that was half showcased behind the door. “Are we in a mine or something?”
“Shut up,” Piggy said.
“Hey, jou is not the boss of me!”
“Hey guys,” Scooter interrupted, pointing at the level doors that had been revealed after partially opening the elevator doors. Repeating their earlier action, Fozzie, Rowlf, and Gonzo managed to get the outer doors to the elevator partially opened, though it did nothing to appease them when they noticed the darkness of the room below.
“Great,” muttered the dog.
“Well,” Fozzie said, optimistically. “At least we’re at the top.”
Once again, the elevator shook and groaned causing the car to shake slightly.
“I hope,” he added silently.
“Oy!” Pepe said, pushing people out of his way, all while dropping to the floor and calling out into the open doorway. “Hola? Hola? Hola!”
“Shut up!” Piggy demanded, kicking him slightly in the leg. “There’s no one here, idiot.”
“Quite right,” Sam responded, straightening up and looking at each of them. “The important thing here is not to panic.”
“Who’s panicking?” Piggy asked, pulling out her cell phone. “This is easily solved.” Or so she thought. The idea of simply calling downstairs or equally, calling Kermit, was quickly evaporated once she saw she had no cell service. “I’m not getting a signal.”
The others, besides Sam and Scooter, quickly checked their cell phones, all noticing the same thing – no service blaring either across their screens or being indicated by the service icon. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem,” Scooter replied, shrinking back slightly.
“Why?” questioned Rowlf.
“There’s an RF jammer on the roof.”
“Of the building?” Gonzo asked.
“Of…of the elevator.”
Groans and curses met the ears of the page, who again cringed, especially when Piggy all but towered over him, asking, “And for what. Possible. Reason?”
“They wanted people to stop staring at their cell phones and talk to each other,” he murmured. “This is an office building, after all. They wanted the workers to actually and actively be engaged with each other.”
“Well the next time someone ties the knot, we’ll be sure to find out how that interaction worked,” Gonzo groused.
“Forget that,” Rowlf was saying, getting Fozzie to give him a lift up. “There’s always the…”
“Trap door!” Gonzo exclaimed. “Yeah, get on that! Open that door!”
“He can’t, h’okay?”
“Oh please,” Rowlf chuckled, glaring at the prawn. “I am a thousand times stronger than you.” Turning back to the door, Rowlf tried his best to open the trap door, however he found that the door was stuck. “That being said…this thing is stuck.”
This time, it was Pepe who rolled his eyes. “Let me blows your mind, h’okay?” Pepe responded. “The trap door is not for us, it’s for the rescue people. Hence why the door only opens on the outside and not on the in. They don’t wants the trapped people crawling around on top, jou know.”
Once again, everyone looked in the prawn’s general direction. “Why do you know this?” asked Piggy.
This time, Pepe shrugged. “I has a fascination with elevators, h’okay?” he said.
“Words, literally, fail me.”
“Anyway, with the way the elevator went up to the top, it would be surprising if the motor is still working or what not.”
“Geez,” Scooter said, looking up at the ceiling. “I wonder if the RF jammer got damaged.” The first cell phone hit him in the chest, which was followed by the others luckily being blocked by his arms when he brought them up to defend himself. “Ow!”
“Huh,” Piggy giggled. “Merci, Scooter. Moi thinks we all needed that.”
“Thankfully for us,” Sam replied, moving towards the control panel and opening it. “We don’t any of your high technical gizmos, when we have the elevator phone.”
“Well, use it already!” said Scooter.
“I am,” Sam said, glaring at the redhead. “If you would just stop interrupting me. This is going to be a highly concentrated process.”
“To make a phone call?” asked Gonzo.
“How long has it been since you’ve had communication with the outside, Sam?” Fozzie asked.
The eagle just continued to glare before turning back to his task. Unfortunately, regardless of how many times he tried dialing, not only was there no dial tone, there was no tones coming from the numbers. “The phone is dead.”
“Just like we will be!” Fozzie cried. “Oh my God! We’re trapped in here!”
“Calm down,” Rowlf said.
“We’re gonna starve!”
“And speaking of which,” Piggy interrupted. “Moi doesn’t know about the rest of you, but…”
The sounds of furious eating cut off the diva’s sentence, only to be replaced by Fozzie yelling, “Is that a bear claw!?”
Pepe, the perpetrator behind the oversized bear claw, took a defensive position, with four of his arms raised to ward off anyone coming after him or his bear claw. “Jou get your own bear claw…Bear!”
“Scooter, what’s in that bag?” asked Gonzo.
“It’s just a paper bag,” the page said, also taking a defense position. “Back up, jack. I got a mug full of coffee and I ain’t afraid to use it!”
“Alright, everyone, just calm down,” Sam began.
“We’re all gonna die!” cried the comic before lunging after the prawn and his goodies. Before long, several fights had broken out, with Rowlf, Gonzo, and Scooter fighting over the contents of the mysterious paper bag, while Pepe fought his best to hold off a bear with a sweet tooth. That left Piggy and Sam to try and not only stop the fighting, but calm everyone down.
“Okay, knock it off!”
“Desist this deplorable contact immediately!”
“I mean it. Fozzie…”
“Gentlemen, he is just a boy!”
“I swear…”
Suddenly, a high pitched whistle silenced the chaos in the car, while also causing high pitched ringing in the ears for those that were in said car.
“What the...?”
“Why would you…?”
“Whistling…”
“Finish that sentence,” Piggy said, pointing at Rowlf. “Back on point. Gonzo, off with the sweater vest.”
The weirdo actually gave her a doubtful look. “This elevator ride has taken an uncomfortable turn.”
“Shut up and off with the sweater vest.”
“For what reason?”
“For the obvious reason,” Piggy retorted, rolling her eyes. “We’re going to pull our resources together for food. So hurry up.”
“Lord, woman!” he groused, doing his best to remove the argyle vest. “Maybe if you’d shut up…”
“You shut up!”
“Both of you, shut up!” Scooter exclaimed. “Gonzo. Vest. Now!”
“Alright!” Stripped of his sweater vest, Gonzo held it tightly in his hands. “Wait, how exactly is this supposed to work?”
“It puts the sweater on the floor or else it gets the mug again!” the red head threatened.
“That doesn’t even rhyme.”
“Knock it off,” Piggy growled. “Gonzo put the vest on the floor. We’ll put all our food on top of it.”
“Where on the floor?” Fozzie asked.
“Yeah, h’okay,” Pepe piped up. “Like, there’s no room and we’ll lose our precious food.”
“Then we’ll tie it all up,” Piggy said.
“In case you didn’t notice, your highness,” Gonzo pointed out. “It’s a sweater vest. Hence, no sleeves.”
“Well, that should work perfectly for you, since you will have no arms.”
“This is not a complicated matter!” Sam interrupted. “It’s very simple. We all know what is here. We have a half-eaten bear claw, one bagel with cream cheese I’m guessing, three cups of coffee…”
“Two,” Gonzo said. “I finished mine before the elevator came to a stop.”
“Two cups of coffee then,” Sam amended. “And half of a 64oz…whatever the shrimp is drinking.”
“King prawn, h’okay?” Pepe said. “And it’s Coke with a slushie. It’s how I always drink my colas.”
“That is literally and figuratively disgusting,” Scooter said.
“Right,” Piggy sighed. “So anyway, Moi believes it would all be in our best interests if we all hold off on eating or…”
The slurping noises immediately turned everyone’s heads as they watched Pepe down the other 32 ounces of his Big Gulp.
“Pepe!”
“Idiot!”
The loud resounding belch that came afterwards managed to turn everyone’s heads in the opposite direction.
“What the…?”
“You disgusting little…!”
“That is more than a bear claw!” Rowlf rounded on him, his sensitive nose picking out more than the pastry the short stack had.
"What is that!?"
Another belch came before the answer. “A beefy bean burrito.”
“Oh, for the love of…!”
“Is not sitting well with me, I think.”
“He thinks!” Gonzo complained.
“First time for everything,” Sam added.
“As Moi was saying, before Short Round’s interruption,” Piggy continued. “It would probably be a good idea to lay off the eating and drinking because…”
Again, the sight of Pepe – this time waving his hand frantically in the air – derailed Piggy’s speech. “Yes, Pepe?”
“I has to visit the little Prawn’s room.”
“Idiot!”
“Why did we let him in here?”
“I swear,” Scooter demanded, pointing a finger at the prawn. “That beefy bean burrito had better not come back to bit us in the behinds.”
“Literally,” added Piggy.
“And figuratively,” Gonzo also added. “But mostly literally. Because we will literally use you to open that trap door.”
Suddenly, Fozzie gasped, causing the others to turn to him. “You guys! I have an idea!”
“Based in reality?” Piggy asked, causing the bear to roll his eyes.
“Yes.”
“About our current situation?” asked Gonzo.
“Yes,” the comic whined.
“Then what is it?” Rowlf asked.
Fozzie looked at the pianist in mild confusion. “We’re stuck in an elevator, Rowlf.”
That earned him a slap against the back of his head. “Not the current situation, you dunce,” came the reprimand from the diva. “Your idea!”
“Well, I’m not a mind reader, you know!” The comic complained, rubbing the back of his head. Another gasp and he looked at everyone. “But what if I was a mind reader?”
“Then you’d know what we’re all thinking right now,” Gonzo deadpanned.
“Well…” Fozzie began, pointing at Pepe. “He wants another bear claw, Piggy wants more caffeine, Scooter wants to be at home with his girlfriend, Sam wants to lecture us, you’re mildly claustrophobic, and Rowlf wants to smoke.”
“What?” the dog chuckled. “I totally don’t smoke!”
“Anymore,” Piggy supplied, before turning to look at Gonzo. “And since when have you ever been claustrophobic?”
“Mildly,” Gonzo corrected. “And only with other people. Being in an enclosed space by yourself is easy; you can moderate your breathing, you can calm yourself. It’s when you put other people in, with their big ole horse nostrils sucking up all the air, then yes, I have a problem!”
"The first step is to admit it," Piggy replied.
“And what does any of that prove anyway?” Rowlf said, chuckling. “All he did was rattle off some of our clearly obvious addictions.”
“I am not addicted to lecturing people!” Sam bristled, only causing the rest of the car to start laughing at him.
“Thanks, Sam,” Gonzo replied. “I think we needed that.”
“And anyway,” Scooter piped up. “How is it obvious that I have a girlfriend? Which, I don’t by the way.”
“Fine, boyfriend then,” Gonzo said, smirking at Scooter’s disapproval of the switch. “And that love bite on your neck with dictate otherwise.” Scooter’s hand quickly flew to his neck in surprised horror, which only caused the stunt weirdo to laugh harder at him. “Actually, there’s nothing there, but you’ve proven my point.”
“Prank burn!” laughed Piggy.
“Classic,” Rowlf finished. “But you know what? You’re right,” reaching into a pocket of his jacket, Rowlf pulled out a Zippo and a cigarette. “I do want to smoke.”
“And I also wants a bear claw,” Pepe said, dejectedly.
“Shut up,” Piggy admonished. Turning to Rowlf, she pointed a finger at him. “And just where do you think you plan on smoking that?”
“I was thinking Bon Jovi’s house,” the dog muttered, sarcastically. “But seeing I’m stuck here with you guys…”
Before he could even get the cigarette to his lips, Piggy had already swatted it away. “The what, woman!?”
“You are not smoking in here,” she threatened. “Some of us would like to live to see next week, thank you. So I repeat, you are not smoking in this elevator!”
“You wanna bet!?”
Shoving him against the elevator doors, Piggy questioned, angrily, “Do you?”
Fights among the cast and crew of the Muppets was not an uncommon thing, in fact, many times a fight could crop up over the color of the dress that had been hanging in the wardrobe back in 1981. With that said, there were few people that fought – Rowlf was one of them. He was a very laid back individual, however if you did get his dander up, he would come at you like the boxer and pitbull mix he thought he was. Piggy, of course, was a brawler at the drop of a dime. Hair trigger temper had been coined after someone got on her bad side.
And while the two hardly ever quarreled with each other, it was known to happen. Out of everyone, Rowlf carried a bit of a big brother complex when it came to the diva, most likely a side effect of having a crush on her back in the early days. And Piggy no less enjoyed having a silent protector all her own, even if she didn’t need one. That of course didn’t mean that the two of them were above getting into scraps, even physical ones.
Like this one.
“Hey guys, come on!”
The two were completely absorbed in getting the better of the other, though it clearly looked like Piggy was winning this round; she already had one of Rowlf’s arms behind his back, while choke holding him with her other. Rowlf wasn’t above hair pulling at this point, which was what he was doing in order to get the diva to release his other arm.
A short, shrill whistle was all that was needed to bring a semblance of order back, this time from Gonzo of all people. “I cannot stress enough that none of us wants tinnitus!”
Please forgives the lateness in all things WMG. On a very good note, I quit my job for a new one, which is much better suited to what I want to do and equal parts awesome and terrifying. But with that said, I have another one shot for you!
This time, I'm pulling from my fave adult cartoon show of Archer, which dear god if you haven't seen it, watch it! Netflixers, you now can watch all five seasons; season six is all new on Thursdays on FX. This little gem is from that season and by all accounts, is pretty much a bottle episode, but an awesome one. Here's a review of the episode (obviously I can't get it to you, unless you all have Amazon), so you'll get the gist.
In the meantime, here's the first part!
Title: Team Building
Genre: Parody
Inspiration: "Vision Quest", Archer, Season 6, ep 5
At 6:30 on a Thursday morning, a high rise office building became the setting for a catastrophe, at least that was how the story was told after the events.
It should have been something simple – Kermit the Frog, leader and director of the famed Muppets, had decided that his group of misfits could use with a little team building, as he called it. They had all just gotten back together nearly a year ago and all it took was one international jewel thief to nearly destroy everything they had worked for.
Maybe it was the insecurity or the jealously that the frog had been feeling towards the amorous doppelgänger or perhaps it was incredulous animosity that he had starting feeling towards his so-called friends, who had conveniently forgotten who he was that had led to this, seemingly ridiculous idea, but an idea it was.
Never the less, Kermit thought it good idea to get everyone together to try and catch up, “team building,” he said, broaching the group about it. “It’s been a while since, well, we’ve all been together, so this will help with…you know. Things.”
That last part was surely directed at them all, at their behavior for failing to see that their true frog had seemingly been replaced with an evil clone, who had nearly broken them apart before trying to kill them all. Granted, Kermit had every right to be upset with them, but there were some that thought he was taking this just a little too hard, especially after the events of them breaking up in the first place. But they were feeling guilty enough as is that they all went ahead and agreed to do it, sending the page to arrange things.
And Scooter Grosse was Kermit’s man through and through, able to find an office space that could hold the lot of them and able to come up with the money to arrange it all, as well as the person who found the best time for the office building to be empty before they got there, which unfortunately just happened to be at seven o’clock in the morning. While many of them were early birds by nature, the hectic lifestyle of a performer usually meant late nights and later mornings.
That was the topic of conversation as Fozzie Bear and the Great Gonzo walked up to the doors of the Hyatton Office complex, grumbling about how they were awake at an ungodly time, on a day they normally were not up early. “I don’t see why he’s so insistent on this,” Gonzo grumbled, rubbing his eyes with one hand, while taking a drink of his Frappuccino with the other. He had a late night the day before and all he had wanted to do was sleep for most of today.
“If you ask me,” Fozzie replied, nodding as he saw Scooter Grosse and Rowlf the Dog coming from the opposite site. “I think he’s still mad about what happened in Europe. Not that I blame him!” He added, hastily once he saw the looks the others were giving him. As much as Kermit had been upset about the whole ordeal, the others – especially those that had been the closest to him – continued to feel like royal class heels whenever the topic was brought up.
“But you know,” the comic continued. “Maybe he feels like…well, maybe we aren’t as close anymore.”
“Hence this whole teambuilding nonsense,” Rowlf muttered. Like Gonzo, he’d had a late night out with most of the Electric Mayhem and much of it had included alcohol, so the dog – who usually handled his liquor better than anyone – wasn’t feeling up to much of anything today.
Scooter kept quiet during the exchange, patiently walking through the automatic doors of the office building. He had chosen the Hyatton because it was a modern building that had very little traffic, which was great for them as they could get rowdy, especially with several hundred of them in one room. He had booked a room on the top floor, the largest conference room that easily fit at least 200 people, which of course was what Scooter was going for; he didn’t mind being there so early, but he certainly counted his large coffee as testament to him being in a better mood than his cohorts.
The lobby of the complex was deserted, not even the secretary was there at this hour, though he didn’t expect to be there anyone at that time anyways. “Is there anything better than a crisp morn?” asked a voice behind them as they walked through the door. Sam the Eagle, their resident moral guardian, was in an annoyingly chipper mood for such an early morning.
“I take it you’ve destroyed a small child’s belief in all things wonderful?” snorted Gonzo.
“I’ll have you know, Gonzo, that I spent a wonderful morning basking in the nature and beauty of God’s creations.”
“Shut up, Sam.” The quartet murmured, making their way towards and then inside the building’s elevator. The last thing any of them wanted was to listen to Sam’s moral righteousness at such an ungodly hour.
“Hold it! Hold the elevator!”
The running and yelling of their resident diva caused both Fozzie and Rowlf to hold open the door for her as she came charging in, huffing and sweeping her blonde curls out of her face. “Merci,” she breathed, waving her coffee at the others in greeting. While seeing Miss Piggy wasn’t a complete surprise, seeing her without Kermit was. The two shared a home, so it was always weird to see one without the other these days.
“No frog to grace our presence?” Gonzo quipped.
“Mon Capitan decided he’d bring treats,” she replied, smoothly. “How else would he manage to get all of us in one building at -” Checking her watch, she groaned. “Six forty-seven in the morning. I’m going to teach that frog a valuable lesson about appropriate timings. And then I’m going to kill him.”
“Want us to hold him for you?” Rowlf asked, jokingly.
Before the diva could retort back, the now six member elevator group heard one last call for the elevator. In the distance they could see – and hear – the huffing and puffing of a low pitched accented voice, though it seemed to be hidden behind a 64 oz Big Gulp. “Oh no,” Scooter said, rapidly pressing the close door button. “It’s not staying open. Oh, the doors are closing, I can’t make them stay open.”
And the doors looked to close, causing the group to sigh, but not before a skinny red arm managed to poke through just in time, followed by two more. “Dios mio!” exclaimed the king prawn known as Pepe as he squeezed through the opening. “I almost thought I’d miss this,” he puffed. “Hey, why is Kermit making us do this so early in the morning? The sun wasn’t even out when I woke up, h’okay?”
“How you manage to see the sun when you live under a rock, I don’t know,” Piggy snarked.
“Hey,” Pepe poked back. “I gets plenty of the suns. How do you think I gets my pretty glow?”
“Your what?” asked Scooter.
“It’s, jou know, my Guatamalaness.”
The others just stared at him. “You did not just turn a country into an adjective,” Sam questioned, giving the prawn an incredulous look.
“This surprises you?” asked Piggy. “Coming from him?”
“Hey, what does that mean?”
“It means you’re an idiot.”
“Hang on…”
The group naturally dissolved into an argument of nonsensical nonsense that would have continued if the elevator hadn’t shaken and grinded to halt, causing the whole group to glance up at the car’s roof. “What was that?” asked Fozzie, timidly.
“That would’ve been the sound of the elevator grinding to a halt,” Scooter whispered.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Gonzo replied, eyes glued to the ceiling.
“Hang on,” Rowlf said, moving to the door. “Fozzie, Gonzo come over here.”
The three attempted to open the elevator doors, hopefully giving them an idea of where exactly they were. “Piggy…” Rowlf stressed.
“What?”
“You…” Fozzie began.
“…should be doing this.” Gonzo finished, causing the other two to laugh.
“Burn,” Scooter chuckled, before shutting up once the diva glared at him.
“We got it!”
“What is this?” Pepe exclaimed, staring at the solid concrete wall that was half showcased behind the door. “Are we in a mine or something?”
“Shut up,” Piggy said.
“Hey, jou is not the boss of me!”
“Hey guys,” Scooter interrupted, pointing at the level doors that had been revealed after partially opening the elevator doors. Repeating their earlier action, Fozzie, Rowlf, and Gonzo managed to get the outer doors to the elevator partially opened, though it did nothing to appease them when they noticed the darkness of the room below.
“Great,” muttered the dog.
“Well,” Fozzie said, optimistically. “At least we’re at the top.”
Once again, the elevator shook and groaned causing the car to shake slightly.
“I hope,” he added silently.
“Oy!” Pepe said, pushing people out of his way, all while dropping to the floor and calling out into the open doorway. “Hola? Hola? Hola!”
“Shut up!” Piggy demanded, kicking him slightly in the leg. “There’s no one here, idiot.”
“Quite right,” Sam responded, straightening up and looking at each of them. “The important thing here is not to panic.”
“Who’s panicking?” Piggy asked, pulling out her cell phone. “This is easily solved.” Or so she thought. The idea of simply calling downstairs or equally, calling Kermit, was quickly evaporated once she saw she had no cell service. “I’m not getting a signal.”
The others, besides Sam and Scooter, quickly checked their cell phones, all noticing the same thing – no service blaring either across their screens or being indicated by the service icon. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem,” Scooter replied, shrinking back slightly.
“Why?” questioned Rowlf.
“There’s an RF jammer on the roof.”
“Of the building?” Gonzo asked.
“Of…of the elevator.”
Groans and curses met the ears of the page, who again cringed, especially when Piggy all but towered over him, asking, “And for what. Possible. Reason?”
“They wanted people to stop staring at their cell phones and talk to each other,” he murmured. “This is an office building, after all. They wanted the workers to actually and actively be engaged with each other.”
“Well the next time someone ties the knot, we’ll be sure to find out how that interaction worked,” Gonzo groused.
“Forget that,” Rowlf was saying, getting Fozzie to give him a lift up. “There’s always the…”
“Trap door!” Gonzo exclaimed. “Yeah, get on that! Open that door!”
“He can’t, h’okay?”
“Oh please,” Rowlf chuckled, glaring at the prawn. “I am a thousand times stronger than you.” Turning back to the door, Rowlf tried his best to open the trap door, however he found that the door was stuck. “That being said…this thing is stuck.”
This time, it was Pepe who rolled his eyes. “Let me blows your mind, h’okay?” Pepe responded. “The trap door is not for us, it’s for the rescue people. Hence why the door only opens on the outside and not on the in. They don’t wants the trapped people crawling around on top, jou know.”
Once again, everyone looked in the prawn’s general direction. “Why do you know this?” asked Piggy.
This time, Pepe shrugged. “I has a fascination with elevators, h’okay?” he said.
“Words, literally, fail me.”
“Anyway, with the way the elevator went up to the top, it would be surprising if the motor is still working or what not.”
“Geez,” Scooter said, looking up at the ceiling. “I wonder if the RF jammer got damaged.” The first cell phone hit him in the chest, which was followed by the others luckily being blocked by his arms when he brought them up to defend himself. “Ow!”
“Huh,” Piggy giggled. “Merci, Scooter. Moi thinks we all needed that.”
“Thankfully for us,” Sam replied, moving towards the control panel and opening it. “We don’t any of your high technical gizmos, when we have the elevator phone.”
“Well, use it already!” said Scooter.
“I am,” Sam said, glaring at the redhead. “If you would just stop interrupting me. This is going to be a highly concentrated process.”
“To make a phone call?” asked Gonzo.
“How long has it been since you’ve had communication with the outside, Sam?” Fozzie asked.
The eagle just continued to glare before turning back to his task. Unfortunately, regardless of how many times he tried dialing, not only was there no dial tone, there was no tones coming from the numbers. “The phone is dead.”
“Just like we will be!” Fozzie cried. “Oh my God! We’re trapped in here!”
“Calm down,” Rowlf said.
“We’re gonna starve!”
“And speaking of which,” Piggy interrupted. “Moi doesn’t know about the rest of you, but…”
The sounds of furious eating cut off the diva’s sentence, only to be replaced by Fozzie yelling, “Is that a bear claw!?”
Pepe, the perpetrator behind the oversized bear claw, took a defensive position, with four of his arms raised to ward off anyone coming after him or his bear claw. “Jou get your own bear claw…Bear!”
“Scooter, what’s in that bag?” asked Gonzo.
“It’s just a paper bag,” the page said, also taking a defense position. “Back up, jack. I got a mug full of coffee and I ain’t afraid to use it!”
“Alright, everyone, just calm down,” Sam began.
“We’re all gonna die!” cried the comic before lunging after the prawn and his goodies. Before long, several fights had broken out, with Rowlf, Gonzo, and Scooter fighting over the contents of the mysterious paper bag, while Pepe fought his best to hold off a bear with a sweet tooth. That left Piggy and Sam to try and not only stop the fighting, but calm everyone down.
“Okay, knock it off!”
“Desist this deplorable contact immediately!”
“I mean it. Fozzie…”
“Gentlemen, he is just a boy!”
“I swear…”
Suddenly, a high pitched whistle silenced the chaos in the car, while also causing high pitched ringing in the ears for those that were in said car.
“What the...?”
“Why would you…?”
“Whistling…”
“Finish that sentence,” Piggy said, pointing at Rowlf. “Back on point. Gonzo, off with the sweater vest.”
The weirdo actually gave her a doubtful look. “This elevator ride has taken an uncomfortable turn.”
“Shut up and off with the sweater vest.”
“For what reason?”
“For the obvious reason,” Piggy retorted, rolling her eyes. “We’re going to pull our resources together for food. So hurry up.”
“Lord, woman!” he groused, doing his best to remove the argyle vest. “Maybe if you’d shut up…”
“You shut up!”
“Both of you, shut up!” Scooter exclaimed. “Gonzo. Vest. Now!”
“Alright!” Stripped of his sweater vest, Gonzo held it tightly in his hands. “Wait, how exactly is this supposed to work?”
“It puts the sweater on the floor or else it gets the mug again!” the red head threatened.
“That doesn’t even rhyme.”
“Knock it off,” Piggy growled. “Gonzo put the vest on the floor. We’ll put all our food on top of it.”
“Where on the floor?” Fozzie asked.
“Yeah, h’okay,” Pepe piped up. “Like, there’s no room and we’ll lose our precious food.”
“Then we’ll tie it all up,” Piggy said.
“In case you didn’t notice, your highness,” Gonzo pointed out. “It’s a sweater vest. Hence, no sleeves.”
“Well, that should work perfectly for you, since you will have no arms.”
“This is not a complicated matter!” Sam interrupted. “It’s very simple. We all know what is here. We have a half-eaten bear claw, one bagel with cream cheese I’m guessing, three cups of coffee…”
“Two,” Gonzo said. “I finished mine before the elevator came to a stop.”
“Two cups of coffee then,” Sam amended. “And half of a 64oz…whatever the shrimp is drinking.”
“King prawn, h’okay?” Pepe said. “And it’s Coke with a slushie. It’s how I always drink my colas.”
“That is literally and figuratively disgusting,” Scooter said.
“Right,” Piggy sighed. “So anyway, Moi believes it would all be in our best interests if we all hold off on eating or…”
The slurping noises immediately turned everyone’s heads as they watched Pepe down the other 32 ounces of his Big Gulp.
“Pepe!”
“Idiot!”
The loud resounding belch that came afterwards managed to turn everyone’s heads in the opposite direction.
“What the…?”
“You disgusting little…!”
“That is more than a bear claw!” Rowlf rounded on him, his sensitive nose picking out more than the pastry the short stack had.
"What is that!?"
Another belch came before the answer. “A beefy bean burrito.”
“Oh, for the love of…!”
“Is not sitting well with me, I think.”
“He thinks!” Gonzo complained.
“First time for everything,” Sam added.
“As Moi was saying, before Short Round’s interruption,” Piggy continued. “It would probably be a good idea to lay off the eating and drinking because…”
Again, the sight of Pepe – this time waving his hand frantically in the air – derailed Piggy’s speech. “Yes, Pepe?”
“I has to visit the little Prawn’s room.”
“Idiot!”
“Why did we let him in here?”
“I swear,” Scooter demanded, pointing a finger at the prawn. “That beefy bean burrito had better not come back to bit us in the behinds.”
“Literally,” added Piggy.
“And figuratively,” Gonzo also added. “But mostly literally. Because we will literally use you to open that trap door.”
Suddenly, Fozzie gasped, causing the others to turn to him. “You guys! I have an idea!”
“Based in reality?” Piggy asked, causing the bear to roll his eyes.
“Yes.”
“About our current situation?” asked Gonzo.
“Yes,” the comic whined.
“Then what is it?” Rowlf asked.
Fozzie looked at the pianist in mild confusion. “We’re stuck in an elevator, Rowlf.”
That earned him a slap against the back of his head. “Not the current situation, you dunce,” came the reprimand from the diva. “Your idea!”
“Well, I’m not a mind reader, you know!” The comic complained, rubbing the back of his head. Another gasp and he looked at everyone. “But what if I was a mind reader?”
“Then you’d know what we’re all thinking right now,” Gonzo deadpanned.
“Well…” Fozzie began, pointing at Pepe. “He wants another bear claw, Piggy wants more caffeine, Scooter wants to be at home with his girlfriend, Sam wants to lecture us, you’re mildly claustrophobic, and Rowlf wants to smoke.”
“What?” the dog chuckled. “I totally don’t smoke!”
“Anymore,” Piggy supplied, before turning to look at Gonzo. “And since when have you ever been claustrophobic?”
“Mildly,” Gonzo corrected. “And only with other people. Being in an enclosed space by yourself is easy; you can moderate your breathing, you can calm yourself. It’s when you put other people in, with their big ole horse nostrils sucking up all the air, then yes, I have a problem!”
"The first step is to admit it," Piggy replied.
“And what does any of that prove anyway?” Rowlf said, chuckling. “All he did was rattle off some of our clearly obvious addictions.”
“I am not addicted to lecturing people!” Sam bristled, only causing the rest of the car to start laughing at him.
“Thanks, Sam,” Gonzo replied. “I think we needed that.”
“And anyway,” Scooter piped up. “How is it obvious that I have a girlfriend? Which, I don’t by the way.”
“Fine, boyfriend then,” Gonzo said, smirking at Scooter’s disapproval of the switch. “And that love bite on your neck with dictate otherwise.” Scooter’s hand quickly flew to his neck in surprised horror, which only caused the stunt weirdo to laugh harder at him. “Actually, there’s nothing there, but you’ve proven my point.”
“Prank burn!” laughed Piggy.
“Classic,” Rowlf finished. “But you know what? You’re right,” reaching into a pocket of his jacket, Rowlf pulled out a Zippo and a cigarette. “I do want to smoke.”
“And I also wants a bear claw,” Pepe said, dejectedly.
“Shut up,” Piggy admonished. Turning to Rowlf, she pointed a finger at him. “And just where do you think you plan on smoking that?”
“I was thinking Bon Jovi’s house,” the dog muttered, sarcastically. “But seeing I’m stuck here with you guys…”
Before he could even get the cigarette to his lips, Piggy had already swatted it away. “The what, woman!?”
“You are not smoking in here,” she threatened. “Some of us would like to live to see next week, thank you. So I repeat, you are not smoking in this elevator!”
“You wanna bet!?”
Shoving him against the elevator doors, Piggy questioned, angrily, “Do you?”
Fights among the cast and crew of the Muppets was not an uncommon thing, in fact, many times a fight could crop up over the color of the dress that had been hanging in the wardrobe back in 1981. With that said, there were few people that fought – Rowlf was one of them. He was a very laid back individual, however if you did get his dander up, he would come at you like the boxer and pitbull mix he thought he was. Piggy, of course, was a brawler at the drop of a dime. Hair trigger temper had been coined after someone got on her bad side.
And while the two hardly ever quarreled with each other, it was known to happen. Out of everyone, Rowlf carried a bit of a big brother complex when it came to the diva, most likely a side effect of having a crush on her back in the early days. And Piggy no less enjoyed having a silent protector all her own, even if she didn’t need one. That of course didn’t mean that the two of them were above getting into scraps, even physical ones.
Like this one.
“Hey guys, come on!”
The two were completely absorbed in getting the better of the other, though it clearly looked like Piggy was winning this round; she already had one of Rowlf’s arms behind his back, while choke holding him with her other. Rowlf wasn’t above hair pulling at this point, which was what he was doing in order to get the diva to release his other arm.
A short, shrill whistle was all that was needed to bring a semblance of order back, this time from Gonzo of all people. “I cannot stress enough that none of us wants tinnitus!”
lapsing into Gollun mode. It wantses our precious paper baggses. But filthy Mup-pets cant's has our baggses.
You would be wise not to smoke, smoke cigarettes that is, in here Rowlf.
: What? Me, have to hop in my trenchcoat?
's still manning the other elevator all the way up and down the building. Or is that one of his many cousins, hmm.
Hey man, why's the elevator not working?
: Must be a short for such a long lift.
Let's just take the escalator instead.
behind puzzled at hearing Danny Boy coming from the vertical tunnel.