#his shoe is jim henson after all

[cingulata]

Since it's Dave Goelz's birthday, here's one of my favorite Dave quotes of all time (from this interview):

"I like you, you're sick enough to stay around."

[princesssarisa]

I'm making my way through the "Donkeyskin" section of Cinderella Tales from Around the World, starting with the versions from Greece, Albania, and Italy.

*In most of these variants, the condition for the father-king's remarriage is either that his bride's finger must fit the late queen's wedding ring or that her foot must fit the queen's shoe. One day, either not knowing about the promise or just not suspecting how far her father will take it, the princess puts on the ring or the shoe and finds that it fits, so her father resolves to marry her.

**As I mentioned in my last post, however, some versions don't have her father want to marry her. In one version, her father is just extremely protective and never lets her leave the castle, so she runs away out of longing for freedom. (Although this is from Andrew Lang's The Grey Fairy Book, so Lang most likely bowdlerized it.) In another, her father betroths her to a rich young man who is really the Devil in disguise, which her fairy governess realizes and alerts her to, but which her father won't believe.

*In different Donkeyskin tales throughout the world, it varies whether the heroine comes up with her gown requests and her disguise by herself or is advised by someone else. These Mediterranean versions tend to give her an advisor: usually her nurse or governess who's secretly a fairy or a good witch, but sometimes a male magician instead, or even the Pope.

*The theme of the three gowns in these variants tends to be this: one gown that looks like the heavens with the sun, the moon, and all the stars on it, one that looks like the sea with all the fishes on it, and one that looks like the earth with every type of flower on it. Several Mediterranean versions of Cinderella also uses this theme for the heroine's gowns.

**Also as in Mediterranean Cinderellas, the heroine sometimes throws coins or jewels behind her when she leaves each ball to distract the prince's servants and prevent them from stopping her.

*Several Italian versions are titled Maria Wood. In some of them, she just wears a wooden dress like the Norwegian Kari Woodencloak. But in others, more interestingly, she encases herself in a full-body suit made of wood, with joints so she can move her limbs, which makes her look like an old woman. Sometimes she sings a funny little rhyme about being "made of wood" when she first introduces herself to the prince or king. This suit also miraculously has room to store her three gowns inside it.

**In other versions, though, she disguises herself in animal skins – e.g. pigskin, rabbit skins, or wolf skin. Sometimes, instead of just passing as a human dressed in skins, she actually masquerades as an animal – a bear, or a horse – although it varies whether she pretends to be an ordinary, non-sapiant animal who stays in the palace yard or a talking animal who works as a scullery maid.

**Giambattista Basile's Il Pentamerone includes a variant, The She-Bear, where the heroine turns herself into a bear by putting a piece of magic wood (given to her by a wise old woman) into her mouth. After she flees, the prince finds her in the forest, and she becomes his pet. The truth is finally revealed when the bear kisses the sick prince, and as she does so, the piece of wood accidentally falls from her lips.

**In another version, called Zuccaccia ("Ugly Gourd"), she disguises herself in a dress covered with strips of dried pumpkin.

**In yet another version, called Pellicotto ("Ugly Skin"), a fairy helps the heroine by magically coating her entire body and face with fur. Then the heroine further disguises herself by putting on male clothes and finds work as the prince's stable-boy. I suspect that "Sapsorrow" from Jim Henson's The Storyteller was partly inspired by this version, since Sapsorrow is likewise completely covered with fur and wears men's breeches in her magical disguise as "the Scraggletag."

*In some versions, she doesn't wear strange clothing or go to work as a servant at all. Instead, she requests a gift of two giant hollow candlesticks or a candelabrum from her father. Then she hides inside one of the candlesticks/the candelabrum, which a servant takes to another kingdom and sells to the prince. Every night when the prince has gone out or is asleep, she emerges and either eats some of his food or tidies his room. This mystifies the prince until he finally spies on the room at night, discovers her, and falls in love. Some similar variants have her hide in a simple wooden chest instead of a candlestick/candelabrum.

*Sometimes she hides her beautiful gowns in a chest, sometimes in three nutshells, or sometimes she has a magic wand with which she makes them appear when she needs them.

*The majority of these versions – and probably the majority from every country, though we'll see if it's true or not – have the prince or king mistreat the disguised heroine. Traditionally, before each of the three balls, she asks to be allowed to go, but he refuses and hits her with an object (often a boot, a shovel, and tongs, though they vary). Then at the ball, when he asks the "beautiful princess" where she comes from, she replies that she's from the land of "Boot," "Shovel," and "Tongs," or whatever the objects were. @adarkrainbow and I have already discussed this recurring theme and how to understand it. In the past, both male-on-female and master-on-servant abuse were more often played for laughs. In this case, assuming that the oral storytellers were mostly commoners, it's arguably social satire at the prince/king's expense (i.e. "Ha ha! Those royals and nobles treat us like dirt, but if we had clothes like theirs they might fall madly in love with us!"), and the princess's trick at the ball can be seen as revenge, sending him on wild goose chases in search of the lands of "Boot," "Shovel," etc. Still, by modern standards, it's not comfortable seeing the heroine treated this way by her future husband.

**Some versions omit this theme, however, and have the prince treat her kindly and see her as a funny little friend. In a few, instead of refusing when she asks to go the three balls, he invites her to the balls, but she pretends to refuse. Zuccaccia is one of these variants: though it keeps the running gag of the prince hitting her with objects, it reimagines them as just light, playful raps amid sibling-like banter.

**One other version has the prince just verbally insult her, and at the balls, when he asks for her name, she replies with the names he called her earlier: "My name is Mud-Scraper," "My name is Blockhead," etc. In yet another, she hits him with the objects each time he refuses to take her to the ball.

*In some versions, at the third ball, the prince/king slips a ring onto the princess's finger, which she later drops into the bread, cake, or soup she sends to him when he becomes sick with love. In others, after the third ball, she sends him food over the course of three days, and each time she drops a golden trinket that she brought from home into the food. Either way, he asks to see the person who made the food, and either she comes undisguised in her beautiful gown, or else he rips off her disguise and reveals the gown underneath it. Or, in a simpler alternative, she asks to take the food to his sickroom herself, and she does so wearing her beautiful gown.

*On her website, though not in this book itself, Heidi Ann Heiner notes that in many Donkeyskin tales (e.g. Perrault's), the father-king gets less blame than he deserves for his incestuous desire and is easily forgiven in the end. That isn't the case in many Italian versions, though: he's clearly portrayed as a villain.

**In several variants, the king is carried away by the Devil as soon as his daughter runs away. In one, he actually sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for the three otherworldly gowns his daughter demands from him, which leads to the Devil claiming his due after the wedding doesn't take place.

**Several other versions follow the heroine's marriage by having the father seek revenge for her refusal to marry him. In an especially grisly literary version, Doralice, the king comes to his daughter's new home in disguise, murders her two children, and then frames her for the crime. For this her husband has her buried up to her chin in the ground to be slowly eaten by worms. But her childhood nurse finally reveals the whole truth to the young king, so Doralice is saved, while her wicked father is tortured to death. In a similar but milder variant, The Deer, the king uses magic to turn his daughter into (of course) a deer; but eventually she meets her husband again during a hunt in the woods and provokes him to shoot her, which breaks the spell. In yet another, the king tries to throw his daughter into a cauldron of boiling oil, only to get caught just in time and be thrown in himself.

@adarkrainbow, @ariel-seagull-wings, @themousefromfantasyland

[popculturebuffet]

Monthly Muppet Madness: Muppets Mayhem

Hello all you happy muppets. For those of you new to this feature, i'm jake I review stuff and once a month I tackle all things muppets, from the troupe themselves to the various hensony spinoffs from Jim Henson and later Henson Workshop. If it has a muppet or something close to a muppet in it, it can go here. This marks a very special occasion for this feature as Muppets Mayhem is the first new Muppet project since I started doing this last march. It's also one I was entirely pumped for not just because I'd get to cover it whenever it dropped, but also for starring the electric mayhem, characters i've always liked and felt could front their own series.

It's also exciting as this is the first time in nearly a decade Disney has done a major muppets production. After the underperformance of Muppets Most Wanted and the quick cancelation of their sitcom, Disney has less cherished the muppets as anyone should and more.. trotted them out once every few years to do something with the property while not actually carring enough to do a new film or tv series and blaming the property itself for the fincial failures of Muppets Most Wanted and The Muppets... and not the fact the former was simply released against a pretty stacked theater and had a very diffrent (if still wonderful) tone from it's beloved predecessor, while the latter had a troubled production and while far from perfect had some good stuff in it.

Disney took a few setbacks as a sign that the muppets were done.. instead of a sign that maybe they just needed a new direction. Steve Whitmire's firing due to his increasing ego and Matt Vogel's rough go when he started as Kermit (not helped by not having the traning period whitmire did), really didn't help, but Disney didn't have a huge excuse. The Muppet Babies reboot happened and having watched some with my toddler nephew recently, it was pretty good, but as far as big mainstream attempts at reinviorating the muppets , Disney really didn't seem to give one iota of a shit and trotted them out for smaller projects like Muppets Now or the Muppets Haunted Mansion.

Disney Fucking up really isn't a suprise, especially given their recent debacle of removing a lot of disney+ shows including the muppet based earth to ned, which i'll be covering in july because fuck this decision entirely.

My point is, besides Disney can go eat a shoe sometimes, is that the Muppets really needed a full blown shot again and to try something new, something they'd adapted to. And Mayhem, for all it's faults.. is a good test of that: deciding to focus not on the core quartet of Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie, but on the wacky hippies on the side. It's honestly a brilliant idea to step away from the core cast for a sec and simply see if the various other weridos int he troupe could carry a story on their own. And Electric Mayhem are custom built for this test run: they provide an ensemble, so they don't have to explain why this set of muppets are off on their own adventure, one of their number is still one of THE most recognizable muppets, meaning they still get name recongition, and it leaves the creative team with a bunch of characters who while not BLANK slates, are still not as fleshed out enough to really get into.

So is this a great new direction for the muppets that will lead into a shared muppets universe as showrunner Adam F Goldberg hopes for.. or another horrible setback at a time when it's the last thing the muppets need? Hop in the van, and cruise with me under the cut as we find out.

So before we can get into the Mayhem themselves, let's get into the man

Let Me Take Your Picture, Add It to the Mixture. The genisis of this series is simple but fascinating: So in 2016. Bill Baretta, longtime muppet performer and the hand behind Dr. Teeth, was naturally there when the Mayhem did a set at the Outside LImits Music and Arts Festival. Baretta was stunned by the massive crowd.. and got to thinking, wondering just who these guys were outside of it and decided to start developing a series on the idea.

In true muppets fashion though.. he wasn't the only person to have the idea, as around the same time, Adam F. Goldberg's friend, editor Jeff Yorkes, cut him a sizzle real to sell him on the same idea. For those less familiar wtih him, Adam F. Goldberg was the creator of the long running 80's set sitcom the Goldbergs, and as happens often once he left the show hit it's seasonal rot HARD.

How both sides came together is unknown, my best guess being Disney realized they had two similar and awesome pitches for a show with the same concept in an IP they were barely using, so simply got the three together, the three gelling as they all had the same basic vision and simply used parts from both pitches to create the final show, with the same basic core of taking these obscure hippiees and fleshing them out. Part of the appeal for Goldberg, and something I strongly agree with is while the characters were known, there was just little enough known about who they were as people to give them wiggle room to develop.

And you can see a lot of The Goldbergs in Muppets Mayhem: it follows a cartoonish mildly disfunctional family, has schemes by one of the character whose a control freak usually cause the conlfict, and usually ends in a character developing button. And this could've been a disaster.. but the style does fit the muppets really well. The Mayhem are a family of choice, Nora works well in the beverley roll, more on her later, and while it has a bit of a formula to it, the episodes are still flexbile so that while most of the story is focused on the main plot of the band making an album, it uses it in a lot of creative ways: we see the band deal with electronic producing, accidently piss off every fan army on the globe, go for a marshmellow hallucination in the desert, save dr. teeth from his overbearing parents, do a documentary with Silent Bob, meet cheech and chong, paint danny trejo's house, nearly fall off a cliff and somehow record an album. Despite it's short run time the season goes a lot of intresting places and manages to expand the characters. It's clear while Goldberg has a style to his work that will likely carry to any future productions it doesn't really hamper a muppet production, and his , yorkes and of course baretta's clear love for the characters shows in tons of carefully picked archive footage and little continuity nods, from the mallory gallery to what have. you. There's even tiny bits of canon welding, with the band both apparently having beef with the river bottom nightmare band.. and having met the feebles.. which is now muppets canon. I didn't think anyone could top James Gunn making gobots canon to the mcu, but clearly I underestimated. The background does have it's drawbacks though: It's clear none of the three involved have really done a stremaing series , and as such ther'es a lot of little network watermarks, like uncessary cast photos and act breaks, sprinnkled throughout, things not really needed in a streaming series. There's also some bigger problems with the human cast but we'll save that for later. By now your all probably wondering what's this series even about? Okay most of you have probably binged the whole thing especially given how late after the series this is comign out. but bear with me

Use it If You Need It, Don't Forget To Feed It

The plot kicks off with the Band away from the rest of the muppets for a change, in the middle of a tour that's been going for the last 40 years ever since their Debut on the muppet show. It's a nice joke.. and also one that works well as given how loosey goosey the Mayhem are with anything resembling a plan, it makes sense they'd consider hanging out in a house with everyone else or working on miss piggy's show as her house band just part of a tour. It also points to another reason the Mayhem were a very easy fit to have their own show: it's not hard to explain why their not with everyone else. While chunks of the troupe have moonlighted, Bobo was an evil sidekick, Sam a government agent, as needed for the plot, with the Mayhem being musicians and party members them simply wondering off for a while makes sense. Kermit is probably so used to it he has a backup band on standby.

Enter Nora Singh, played by Lily Singh, youtuber i'm not familiar with turned failed talk show host and now turned actress, a struggling assitant for Waxtown Records, once the height of the industry now about to close because it's head Penny wants to retire and is convinced the place is dead. While there are sadly no muppet skeletons this time, Penny herself IS a muppet, something I was glad ot hear: given this series only really has the Mayhem and two guest characters otherwise, I assumed Penny would be a human when I first heard about the character and the reveal in the first episode was all too welcome. She's played by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, best known muppet wise as Abby Kadabby over on seasame street, which should tell you just how deep her range is. With Penny planning to shut down she has Nora shred all their old documents.. and it's there she gets her shot, as not only was Waxtown Electric Mayhem's label.. but their infamous in universe for never having done an album. It's also a nice bit of metatext as while they've done a decent amount of music, until there hadn't been a real life electic mayhem album, such a slam dunk marketing wise it's weird they never did it. As for why not in universe it's simple: They thought they had and simply forgot to. As the series establishes, and fits perfectly with what little we knew about them, they just sorta move from one thing to another on a whim, agree to most things. Their friendly and upbeat.. but getting them to actually stay on task is a challenge, something I deeply relate to as this coming out almost 20 days after the show came out can attest to. Even once that's in hand Nora still has a season's worth of problems both the bands and her own, as her sense of what a band needs to be to be profitable clashes with what the band is. Since the band is too nice to course correct her most of the time, a lot of this is left to Moog, the band's number one fan. Moog is played by former child star Taj Moowry and serves as the bridge between the band and nora: as their fan, he can explain a lot of intricacises about the band to our heroine and us in the audience, while also having a better grasp on who they are. If you've gussed a large chunk of the series is Nora ignoring Moog's entirely sound advice about how the band works, your right and it's only kept from being too tiring because we usually move on to the band doing something funny and Mowry's impressive comedic timing.

When not being her own worst enemy Nora has to deal with her more succesful sister Haanah Singh (Saara Chaundry), and her obnoxious wallpaper of an ex boyfriend JJ, who is trying to buy the record company and succeding at trying my patience every time he's on screen despite Anders Holm's best effort. The Mayhem, Hannah and Moog included over time, have to deal with all this and more, from their own personal demons, to trying to update the sound, to documentaries to Dr. Teeth's parents to the most amecae band breakup in history to Janice accidently starting a cult it's a long strange journey.. and now we have context for that journey we can dive into the meat of it: the muppets and all too many live action people and the plentifu and welcome cameos. Everybody's Lover, Everybody's Brother, I Wanna Be Your LIfetime Friend:

Now we've got context for them we can stage dive into our moshpit of a cast... and who better to start with than our headliners. The Electric Mayhem are awesome as hoped. The series was always going to live or die on if these 6 weirdos could be fleshed out enoguh comedically and emotoinally to carry a whole series, possibly whole seasons. While the series has other characters and almost all of them contribute to the story in some needed way, it was always going to be about these 6 weirdos and getting to know them better. The series really lets you get them to know them as much as a group as people. While they always had an air of being peace loving accepting hippie folk, the series simply takes that basic and gives them a fully fleshed out identity as a group and as people. In this case the Mayhem are accepting, warmly welcoming anyone to work with them, and gladly up to try anything wether it be edm or playing a concert in minecraft. It may not work but they'll at least try it. It also shows they , like many a muppet, are incredibly unfocused, running off to do a party or what have you when they get distracted. They can rock well together, but it takes some outside force to wrangle them. It's telling only Nora, who NEEDS this job tow ork and Kermit, whose simply used to doing this kind of shit with every singl eperson he works with bar scooter, are the only ones who've actually succeeded at getting them on task. And Nora often stumbles simply because of the size of the task. Not everyone is Kermit levels of able to take this and i'm pretty sure he's on like 9 types of anxiety medication with them only SLIGHTLY working.

What makes them work is their kindness: the only time they really get mad is when Nora , trying to fake it till she makes it, lies a bunch and triggers Janice's lie allergy. How she hasn't died with all the lies FOzzy and Sam tell themselves just to function is a mystery, but it's a neat enough bit. Only putting one of their own in the hosptial pisses them off and even then once Nora pours her heart out to the band and genuinely apologizes, they quickly forgive her. It's their endless optimism that drives the series, Nora's own development, and makes the series shine despite it's faults; Just a group of people who love those around them, will help anyone without a care and will genuinely not worry.

The last part holds them back. The only time they really fight with each other is episode 7, and for understandable reasons; Floyd is upset to find out a song he thought as he and janices was about how she loves the world, which is mildly dickish but understandable when you find someone you loved and assumed you were in a realtionship with dosen't seem to care at all back, while the band as a whole aren't happy Dr. Teeth took Penny, his girlfriend at the time's , suggestion to name the band after him. It's also telling that not only did Teeth never consider himself front man despite this, but once he realizes it's an actual problem, agrees to change it to just the electric mayhem. These guys.. are family. 6 very diffrent people who found each other somehow and who will gladly welcome anyone else in. While nora takes a while to bond with her new friends and soon surrogate family, they all welcome her from minute one and when Nora ends up homeless thanks to a spat with her sister, they welcome her in. When Moog dosen't understand why he's invited on tour at the end, as while he's become the album's producer, he assumes he'll just be following them as usual, they explain as if it was the most natural thing he's part of the band now. These are kind, loving, warm protaganists who simply live to play musuic, spread good vibes. It takes the good ideas of the 60's peace movement and applies them to today: simply show kindness, welcome people in as family wether your blood related or not, rock out, and do your best. That's all you can ask. I never thought i'd be deeply moved by the electric mayhem, but i'm glad I was. While the band is still mostly a unti, each one still gets fleshed out more. Three of them get full on origin storis Animal get shis first and it's truly touching and fleshes out how Floyd is always taking care of him. What was once more just a weird sort of friendship/beast taming, becomes a father and son, a development I utterly love: As it turns out whatever stygian being birthed animal left him on Floyd's doorstep with a note to KEEP, and Floyd being a kind, welcoming sort, gladly took in the small child and made him his son and adopted him with his commonlaw husband and wife. It also shows that while everyone's worried when Animal, thinking a joke about him being replaced by a drum machine is real, quits, Floyd is devistated and badly just wants his son back.

He may be a loved part of the mayhem and a treasured family member.. but he's Floyd's kid. It's why he's spent years helping him blend with others and keeping him form eating furintirue and why Animal ultimately comes back despite being a great hibachi chef. Floyd also gets some minor spotlight in Dr. Teeth's spotlight episode: when Teeth's domeneering mom and agreeable to said mom dad show up to drag him back for the 80th time we find out Teeth was a meek dental student content to follow his mom.. but meeting Floyd in a music store and then many other times because destiny ships these two as hard as I do, Teeth realizes what makes him actually happy and while he makes his grampy's floss case into a tooth, he ultimately becomes the rock god we know. And while Floyd does have at hing for Janice, the series still makes his and Dr. Teeth's orgiin story as gay as possible in the best way possible, with it being one long allegory for one person awakening anothe'rs sexuality, down to the disaproving parents. The fact the mayhem come off like they'd be very fond of open relationships makes neither this nor Teeth's actual love intrest in the series a problem. While the whole "son has parents who want to shove him into a career" is all too common a story trope.. and a thing that really happens in real life, it works well enough here as Teeth was never in a ton of danger of actually going with them, only breifly doing it when Nora interupts his normal process for this. It's stil lhealthier he finally made amends with his parents, but it works. The more compelling bit of his backstory, beisdes all the shipping in the previous bit, is Penny. Teeth broke her heart leaving a while ago and while they quickly get back together, and we sadly just as quickly find out he has a foot thing... and we see them playing this little piggy on screen

Look am I kink shaming dr. teeth? No. What they want to do to each other is their buisness and the relationship is oddly adorable outside of this scar to my brainpan. But do I want to see a muppets gross foot while Dr. Teeth implies he's going to do sex things to it? No. I'm sure even some foot fetishests would agree. The Dalmationatrix in the happy time murders was less overtly sexual. And also way hotter, but that may be a me thing and may make my point as i'm sure many of you shuddered a bit at that statment. Point is please no more stuff like this adam f goldberg. Implied muppet sex is fine, just don't show us muppet feet. Please no. No feet pics.

I was.. talking about something. Oh yeah. The problem is Teeth left her abrubtly earlier, and he find sout during the groups' marshmellow drug trip in the dessert it's because he has commitment issues, likely DUE to said parents. Penny isn't mad he coudlnt' commit forever, just that he couldn't FOR NOW. , and Teeth realizes this just isn't healthy, not only unblocking him writers wise, but letting him be open with their relationship, which not only gets Penny off the groups back, but onto his and OH GOD....

Okay for my sanity we're moving on to Janice. We get to see more of Janice's empathetic side: while she's still as fursurely as ever, we get to see she loves trying to help other people.. and much like Steven Universe, while this isn't a bad thing on the surface, it also means she never helps herself, something only her hallucination clone can get her to realize. It is nice to see her be so supportive, realize she needs self care, and generally get to be more than just "one of the only other female muppets" and "space case". She also forms a cult when the band gets addicted to the internet. This isn't a plot twist I saw coming but is it the best thing in human history? Probably. Fursurelian for life. Hopefully I will be spared when it happens. Animals as pointed out gets his backstory, and while he has a crush on NOra very early on, he later realizes it's because they both lost parents and becomes more protective. It's adorable. Animal dosen't change much but it makes sense: Out of the mayhem Animal was easily the most used and the one who could easily show up on his own for gags. Animal is often thrown in with the core four and has shown up in just about every muppet production. He's an icon for good reason: his simple antics and shouty performance just make him loveable as all hell. This series further highlights this by making him the mayhem's youngest, esspetainlly being a hyperactive 20 something. It also posititons hima s the heart of the gorup: they can't bring themselves to play when he leaves for an episode and their breakup to make tension for the climax mostly happens because he's too exausted from his side gig to stop it, and once he wakes up and finds noras gone missing he's the one to bring everyone back together. He's the core of the group: he may be the most popular but he wouldn't be without them. They need him and he would never leave them.

Finally we have Zoot and LIps. Zoot is the blue one and Lips is the one with an afro who I frequently forget is in the band because he disappears a lot. Zoot.. really isn't fleshed out that much. He takes photos and he's forgetful. They add nothing to him. He's easily the weakest character here. He does hang out with an anthromoprhic shoe, so there's that at least. In contrast Lips goes from being often wallpaper only there when needed, to quitely one of the best parts of the show. His gags now are that he's unitellgible and despite that has a LENGTHY and epic history. He's the one who convinced Kesha to drop the $.. which also implies he helped her breka free from dr. lukes' abuse. Zoot's a good one. He's also friends with Paul Mcartney and Paula Abdul among many others. It's just a nice gag and he's geninely fun and it's used in moderation enough to not wreck the show. So the band is solid as ever. The human characters.. are a bit more hit and miss. Starting with Nora, Lily Singh does her best, and she does have a nice energy that plays off the muppets well. She's trying very hard and i'd love to see her in another production as she has clear talent. The issue really isn't her.. it's the script. Nora is written however the episode needs her:, and thus is pulled between uptight nerd whose mildly out of touch with music, hence a running gag where she sees the lyrics of rock and roll all night "and part of every day".

Other times she has a deep love of rock, having a bob marely tatoo, well knows the modern scene, and her issues come more from simply not working with what she has in the band, of trying to make them what she THINKS will sell instead of what they are, which is a metaphor for how disney has treated the muppets and many ips at time if ever there was one. The latter just works better, and it's when it dips too far into one end or the other of her being uptight or into rock where it falters and singh can often come off stiff.. because I supsect she really dosen't know what this character feels. If the writers don't know who nora is how can the audience or the person playing her? Nora is supposed to be a major pillar of the series.. but the writers refusal to give her depth despite trying to plaster it on with her having had to raise her sister or her type a personality means the character flails next to the better defined muppets. It also dosen't help her most major human costar.. is given a more consitent and intresting character. Moog is easily the highlight of the show shuman caast, with Taj Mowry given way more to work with. Moog's character isn't super deep, but has just enough depth to work well: he intitially comes off as simply a fanboy, constantly asking Nora to look at his demo like any struggling musician.. but as the episodes go on we get to know him better. We see like any good fan the band mean a ton to him and his friendship with them is genuine: while he's a massive fan of theirs, they treat him with respect like they woudl anyone, gladly bond with him and are thankful he's there for him. IN turn he gets the band in a way Nora dosen't and part of her best moments is having him as contrast: he tells her very early on she simply dosen't have to posture because the band are the most acepting people. His best stuff comes in episode 5: while nora desperatelyt ries to get the band to make a "new sound", he gets angry.. but it's not fan entitlmeent as Nora thinks.. but because he's taken the time to actually listen. He get stheir sound and when nora finally listens to his demo.. she realizes, eventually at least, that his sound actually bridges their 70 vibes to modern production. He has real talent, and a real love for the band. We also get what I feel is one of the best seens for singh as a result: nora pouring over old footage as she goes from someone simply seeing the band as her next step.. to being a mayhead herself and knowing how to finally help them to their best. The show needed more of this, having nora as a symbol of a coprrate present.. and shedding that to be more herself, someone who really knows music and opens up.

Moog does take a hard nosedive in the last few episodes though. It starts to peak through when he gets jealous of Nora's ex jj and tricks him into bringing up the name thing, nearly breaking up the band.. but in the last two it really gets bad. Instead of telling Nora how he feels.. .he sulks in the background as she gets back together with human carpet, then blames her for the band's breakup because... she told them what the internet was. Which is something most acts need to know. They breakup because they all get hooked on various internet based things and because the writers forgot to write an actual reason for conflict and had to make something up fast. The romance with him and nora genuinely isn't bad at first: he has a crush on her, btu refuses to act on it because he needs this gig and she needs this to go well. It's when they make it love triangle stuff and turn him into a mopey dickhead who almost dosen't try to get the band back together till she apologzes, a band full of people who GENUINELY love him and see him as one of them that he genuinely loves and worships. Mowry does his best but like with singh when the material isn't great.. what can he honestly do. If behaviors bad enough an actor can make it hilarous or add a smuch depth as they can. But when all your given is a big spoonful of cliche, you can only do so much. i've hinted at the human embodiment of the color beige enough, let's talk about JJ. JJ is a character I think the right actor could've hammed up enough to be tolerable. Anders Holm by contrast is a guy who tends to paly his roless subtler. As such former bagle boy for waxtown and now rich tech bro is just... annoyingly bland. He shows up to try and buy wax town to win Nora back and just kinda shows up. He adds nothing to the plot. And look i'm someone who tries to not go too hard on actors in these reviews... but you could see the but coming from a mile away couldn't you? Anders Holm.. is awful in this. He tries, he does, but he's horribly cast. JJ needed someone with enough energy to make the bad writing on the character passible, someone who can really nail the "tech bro whose secretly just trying to be one because it's the kind of guy his ex wanted" charcter. Instead he's just the bland romantic false lead from every 90's film and romcom. Singh sometimes has weak material but does her best with it and that I can admire but Holm, even acounting for his character being supleforous at best is just so agressively bland it adds nothing.

What's extra annoying is that Ben Schwartz, who is an EXPERT at playing people with huge egos in suits, it's how his career started.

Is instead left to just one episode working as Animal's job counsler. He's brilliant at it, deadpanning perfectly to Animal.. which begs the question why he wasn't given the part: At the time of this writing he isn't a regular on any live action or animated shows, he's experinced at the part and that small cameo showed he can play really well off the muppet JJ ends up interacting with the most. The result is a character who just sucks all the energy out when he's around. He's ONLY there for a very pointless love triangle no one asked for that goes EXACTLY how you'd expect with no varations toit. The idea they present in episode 7, that JJ became what he is to impress her is intresting.. but they do nothing with it and he spends the whole series as this bland cypher. You question why Nora's remotely intrested beyond "because the plot says she should be", and she suddenly moves back in with him. And he then easily blows it beause he dosen't understand why maybe the person whose dad died and mom impliclty abandoned her would bond with a band whose family. JJ just sucks, and he ends up making Moog suck as Moog spends the last two episodes moping and whining because Nora dosen't like him back when he NEVER TOLD HER. He did for good reason, this is his one shot and opportunity comes once in a life time, but it soon devolves into crap. It's the one part I genuinely hate about the series. Finally human wise we have Nora's sister, Hannah. Hannah is a character that didn't need to be in nearly as much of the series as she did. She's not bad, Saara does a decent enough job and unlike JJ the characters layers are explored well: Hannah took her sister in and let her stay on her couch.. but gets annoyed that her relationship with Nora has turned into all take and no give: Nora brings up raising Hannah after their father died and mother impliclty abandoned them a lot, and tends to put her wants over Hannah's, and is not so subtly jealous Hannah has easily reached what she wants in life, fame as an influencer, while Nora struggles and struggles and is only now getting anywhere. It feels like a real sibling conflict and the two actresses have good chemistry. It's just after Janice patches things up with the two... Hannah is reduced to influencer jokes. Once the series doesn't' really need her instead of writing the character off or finding something for her to do with the album, like I dunno work on costumes since she's shown changing costumes for her videos to pretend to be in fancy locales, or be the team's image consultant, she's just kinda there. While JJ is stapled onto the story to pad time Hannah is weirdly disconnected despite being vital to Nora's character and having plenty of ways she could be woven into it. A triangle between her, Hannah and Moog would've made WAY more sense. Instead Hannah is just there for the rest of the series.

Finally we have Penny. Penny is a great addition, being hilariously curmudgeonly and making a decent antagonist for the first half of the series without being overwrought: she hates the mayhem but doesn't actively impede them as she correctly figures win or loose, she get something out of it: the album actually happens, her protégé gets a win and she gets money. It fails, her ex falls flat on it's face and she just finishes selling the business like she was going to. Her relationship with Dr. Teeth is also genuinely sweet... I still did not need to know.. things, but it is nice and she slowly warms up to Nora, by the end ditching her vacation with Dr. Teeth to go help the band find her and willingly turning the business over to her.

Cameo wise the series is utterly stacked, with my co-pilot for this series, @jess-the-vampire often wondering how they got all these people. As it turned out from an interview most of it was just "Hey you want to be in muppets" "Done" "But I haven't even told you what you'll be doin.." "I SAID DONE". And thankfully for more Muppets tend to cast a wide generational net so there was only a few acts that had me going

Mostly confined to episode 2's cameos for Zedd and Sophia Carson. Otherwise it's filled to the absolute rim with great cameos. So just rattling off my faviorite in no paticular chronological order we have: The aformentioned bit with Ben Schwartz, Kesha showing up to jam with the band when Nora's trying to find someone to produce the album, Danny Trejo showing up in episode one for one of the best bits of the series as the band paints his house thinking it's theres and later warming to them saying "Those guys painted my house. And according to Bill Danny is apparently the easiest cameo to get and it's why he's become a muppet's regular himself at this point and it's easy to see why. Also really game was my boy Kevin Smith, who naturally was more than willing to take shots at himself, refering to himself as a one star director and letting them take a shot at yoga hosers, which I haven't seen, and god willing never will. He even gets to , as Dr. Teeth puts it be "Silent bob saying something meaningful at the end of the film. " We also get a nice Peter Jackson cameo that as I said confirms meet the feebles is canon to the muppets. How Goldberg got away with that I GENINELY have no idea. And in a long overdue team up we get Weird motherfucking Al Motherfucking Yankovic who appears to Floyd to tell him to stop being such a perfectionist.. and to remind him that yes, Al does more than parodies that criticism is fucking old please stop. Other great cameos include James Hong as Dan, the chef who declares Animal the Chosen one, Joe Lo Trugilo as a Mo Cap Maestro the band works with for their minecraft concert, Charlamange Tha God as himself interviewing the band when they have their contrived penultimate episode amicable breakup, Cedric Yarborugh as a cop who pulls the band over for holding up traffic, Tommy Lee as a walking STD, and most entertainingly Jack McBrayer, Rachel Bloom, Riki Lindholme and Nicole Beyer, always a highlight, all showing up as the heads of various fan armies when Dr. Teeth's autocorrect pisses off all of music.

So with that there's one last bit of business.. and frankly if your going to do a show about the world's greatest muppet band.. it's one of the most important

All of Us Are Winnin, Pickin and a Grinnin, Lordy But I Love to Jam The music was always going to be the thing that either made the series or ruined it for me. Can You Picture That? Is one of my faviorite muppet songs, and as the Mayhem's only original song up to this series it left some VERY big shoes to fill. I mean it's hard to go up against music legend paul williams and their VERY lucky Beef wasn't involved or they'd of been screwed.

Luckily Disney brought in someone every bit Paul Williams equal, which is a sentence I rarely get to say: Micheal Gicchano, composer supreme best known for his jazzy as fuck scores for the incredibles, who got the band's style perfectly. With a 70's style groove that perfectly fits the band's vibe and most songs picked being along those lines. Paul Williams would be proud and probably is atop his magical cloud castle. As a result most of the original songs on the soundtrack are damn good and the covers are great. So let's run through them in order of appearance shall we? Rock On is the series theme and at first I wasn't a huge fan mostly because it sounded a lot like a sitcom theme. Eventually though I got over myself and asked the eternal question

It's still one of the weaker tracks as a song but as an opening it sums the band up decently, has a nice beat and is chopped up decently. I realize now they didn't do the obvious and use can you picture that as it's both hard to get to theme song length, and because it's such an icon it'd overshadow everything else. Rock On is a message that this show is still the mayhem but it's something new with them, and it's still damn groovy. Not the best song ever, i've seen better tv theme songs, but a solid enough one that really worms it's way into your brain.

The first song in the show proper, Rock and Roll All nite is a fine enough cover, it's just Dr. Teeth's vocal's weren't quite the best choice for this and they didn't really change the song any to fit his vocals. To contrast this to another mayhem cover, the band did a truly awesome one of Dancin in the Moonlight for Muppets Haunted Mansion. While that song also has a softer vocal track on the original, they balanced it by having Floyd do the voice and leaving Dr. Teeth for the chorus where his croakier style fits better. Neither's vocals are bad, it's just like any band you have to match them to the song or it turns out okay at best.

So i've spent two straight songs complaining, let's get some positivity back in here. The show's version of Can You Picture that is still damn awesome, letting the current performers for the Mayhem (Zoot excepted as he STILL has the same performer) jam to their greatest song. The lyrics are fun, bouncy, and really fit the band. Do they make a lick of sense? not entirely. Are they fun and get across the vibe of a bunch of people making music? Yes.

Finally for episode 1 , we have Have a Little Faith In Me, the joe cocker classic which the band utterly nails and emotionally, shatters me in show as it was the song Nora's dad sang to her.. and the band sing it for her as thanks for giving them a shot. It's a nice moment, her finally convinced to hang in there with them, as she realizes the true magic of the mayhem and Bill Baretta's vocals are absolutely perfect. Unlike Rock N Roll All Night, Teeth's rough vocals PERFECTLY fit this song.

Next we have episode 2's finale true colors, this time lead by Janice who has a shockingly great singing voice and the tenderness of this version really hits as the Band let Nora know she can be herself. It's the heart of these songs that really works: While True Colors has been used 998 times in the history of film and tv, it's used here not because "Well it pulls the heart strings" and more because it naturally fits the moment.. while also doing that previously mentioned thing.

The next song is a bit of a joke, as Zedd makes a song with the mayhem and sofia carson they gave to her. It's funny enough, nothing great music wise, but it's made to be played over the radio and even the album version lasts exactly a minute.

Next is Bridge Over Troubled Water, a song I honestly haven't heard a ton. While I absolutely love Paul Simon, I prefer his post garfunkel works. Especially when they involve muppets.

It perfectly meshes with both the flashback to Animal and Nora turning up to stay with the Mayhem. One of the best tracks on the album.

We have a nice montage of the band trying to do diffrent versions of Rockin Robin. I'm disapointed we never finished Ziggy Marley's but hey, what happened with him and janice. I get it man. I get it.

We get a very nice cover of God Only Knows to show Moog knows what he's doing but what makes it work is it's paried with a truly stiring montage of the mayhem's history as Nora dives into it and finally really gets the band. Truly moving stuff.

Gonna Get There is a decent enough montage song, the first new song from the band in canon. It's pretty okay, mostly saved by the vocals.

Thankfully next episode makes up for it: Capping off what's already one of the best episodes of the season, we've got Gotta Be. Gotta Be has both one of the best performances but also just one of the best beats, being the kind of funky newmanesque groove that really fits the band, sung as Floyd convinces Teeth to be himself. It's one that not only perfectly fits the message of the band, but the uprorarusly joyful performance at the dental confrence is truly great. Baretta and Vogel play off each other perfectly, getting to do a full on deut and it's as awesome as it sounds. It's easily my faviorite song on the soundtrack.

Naturally the only way to follow this up.. is another cover. This time though it's of the freaking beatles, and frankly All You Need Is Love fits the band so perfectly, I don't see what else they could've gone with, especailly after an episode long homage to the documentary get back.

We Are One is another awesome 70's jam band style song, with the gang singing for unity and succesfully uniting the fan armies. It once again let's vogel vocally jam as Floyd, and there's a damn good reason they ping pong between him and Bill or both unite: they both have great vocals, and it gives the band a nice range. It's why the rock and roll all nite cover sticks out: it would've been better in Matt's hands.

So we're to the final episode as the band has seperated, hence no song for episode 9, and our first is the sound of us, another fun jam band style as Animal brings the band back together. It's perfect for a montage but far less bland Gonna Get There.

There's a fun cover of Join Together as they find Nora that once again fits the band. It feels like post poilot Goldberg and co realized what fit the band better and from that point on every song fits their style perfectly.

WE then get to the band's climactic hollywood bowl performance, belivie in us which is just.. beautiful. A joyous, uplifting celebration that fits everything perfectly and is exactly what you'd hope for. A nice power ballad using both baretta and vogel perfectly and incredibly well suited for Baretta's scratchy teeth vocals.

On Our Way is a nice U2 style song to finish out the song as the band sings us out. It's a good way to close the series and it's only real issue is that Janice, Teeth and Floyd's vocals don't really work together for the chorus. Janice might of been better left off the chorus but the bits between it are so well done, it dosen't matter.

Can You Even Find It? So we have one last odd to clean up.. so I guess it's also an end.

I WAS going to do an episode guide like i normally do.. but realized as I went that in addition to this review taking a very long time as is, I had already commented on most episode based things I wanted to as I went. So this section is more just for the bits I haven't talked about. The first is the only muppet characters besides the band and Penny, Dr. Teeth's parents. Their honestly fairly entertaining his mom going a mile a minute and not seeming to get her son is super succesful, as well as her passive agressive hate of floyd ("Maam") before finally coming around to her sons music and sexuality, while her husband always agreeing with a yup while being treated in charge works. I'ts nothing really new, but their in the episode just enough for the gag to not outstay it's welcome.

The second.. is less fun. The last two episodes.. are a complete mess. The episode before this foreshadows it: it's not a bad episode. The simple idea of the band getting online and autocorrect causing them to accidently pick a fight with every fandom in music is comedy gold. It just has some age signs like having a concert in a video game, something that still happens but not nearly as high profile as it once did, and the game being minecraft, which while I havent' played a ton is a game I like and my nephews and nieces adore, is a weird choice and feels like it was the only one that said yes or disney signed off on. I mean I don't want the muppets anywhere near fortnite, but it's not something minecraft's ever done and dosen't feel like enough of a joke to work. Or maybe it's just me

The last two eps though.. are not great. They have great moments and some good gags, but feel contrived: the band get hooked on various side projects. The side projects themselves are mostly entertaining, with only Teeth's (doing a spicy food tasting channel with penny ala hot ones) not really landing: We get Floyd getting hooked on jingle writing and soon having a jingle empire with Kristian Schaal as his assitant in the span of a week, Lips doing a ted talk, which while not the best ted talk gag of all time, this is..

Is still harmless enough, Zoot getting into photography and forgetting nora exists, Animal getting big on tiktok by scratching himself, and my personal faviorite: Janice starts a cult. It starts with just having people follow her, slowly escalates, and she has a full on compound by the time Nora tries to bring her back into the fold.

The problem is it feels like the band breaks up, if as ambicably as expected, simply to have drama. They likewise don't listen to nora or she can't get to them. It feels like padding to get to ten episodes, especially when episode 7 has a far better reason than "because the internet", the name issue, for them to break up. We also get Moog bitching and moaning because nora "broke up the band" because.. she told the mayhem about the internet.

The actual finale at the hollywood bowl is great, as is them coming to get nora, but the road there feels like they ran out of ideas for this seasons overarching plot and just came up with something quick instead of just finding something weird to fill the space instead.

So with that we've come to the end of the road. The Muppets Mayhem is a promising first step for a new era of the muppets: it proves both a muppets production with a reduced cast can work and be pretty awesome, with lots of great gags, fantastic music and a nice heart. It just needs to either flesh out the humans better or focus more on what we came for, and rely less on stock plots the muppets have never really needed to play so straight. Also fire JJ, out of a canon.. into the sun. That'd be great. The pieces for Muppets greatness are there, they just need to get the bugs worked out of the felt. Still after a decade of no major productions, this is a very nice welcome back and hopefully the start of something fresh for the muppets. And I can certainly picture that. Thanks for reading Next Month: Daddy Daddy, take us underground as we're Returning to the Labyrinth!

[simmonsized]

Mmmm, okay I’ve decided to bug you again. This time it’s for your Bro Strider hcs, it can be as random as you want them to be. Shoot ‘em at me bro!

(Side comment: Mom lalonde’s lack of cooking skills in TRaG kills me every time. I love her <333)

haha you're not bugging me! it's been really fun! this time I will not go on a crazy in-depth rant, because my actual deep dive on Bro Strider's personality, past, and like, general state of being would be embarrassingly long and i refuse to face the mortifying ordeal of being known THAT well like u know, half a million words of nonsense already out there and what have u

BUT i can give u some sillies and they are just. RnG specific, for fun also! (fun for me lol) For canon Bro it's a little too hard bc like.... lmfao the man has no speaking lines, so i'm extrapolating from a 2-D sprite of a version of a guy raised by a demon puppet. Whatever that says about me.

Bro (and D) are both missing a molar on the upper right side, towards the back

Bro got his truck when he was 22, before that, he would carry Dave around on the bus lol

He (like Dirk) doesn't like the crusts on his pizza, but started eating them as the parent of a picky toddler, and I guess never broke that habit, he is a parent down at the center of himself, even if he wouldn't admit it

I headcanon all the Striders as having pretty severe ADHD, just well. Because lol

He has a bunch of the same shirts and shoes because they're "efficient" not because he particularly liked any of them, and I don't think he could be considered particularly fashionable, even if popped collars were, indeed, a thing in 2009

He gets freckles in the sun, which I think he usually manages to avoid with his silly little hat

He's left handed but that's not really a headcanon so much as canon bc hussie is left handed and tends to draw all of them holding swords in their left unless the sprite is flipped haha!

Big Ol' Crush on Jake Harley when he was a kid. Compounded with time and bitterness made for a pretty fraught relationship lol

Bro (obviously) loved Jim Henson as a kid

Hand in hand with that, he's super good at voice impressions, to the point where it's more uncanny and haunting than just like, a little silly

He worked under the table at a car garage after moving into the apartment by himself, and yeah! c:

He was a little ?????? in between 18 and 20, so he started going to college, but dropped out because Dave showed up

Also I headcanon that the kids dropped on Mom and Bro's 20th birthday, due in part to my (regretful) knowledge of the Skaianet files which I don't know if anyone remembers that but like, it mentions grandpa harley picking mom and bro up in 1975

I also have a formula for figuring out the alpha guardians age which is insane but i'm right about it

Bro used to DJ (i mean he has mixing equipment but we all know the smuppets are where the money is at) but Dave was getting too old to leave alone in the car (yes he fucking left his baby in the car don't tell me he wouldn't i know him) so he had to stop

He broke his arm when he was 12 (he fell down the stairs lol)

Bro is afraid of airplanes because he doesn't like being out of control, there's nothing to do, and there are no feasible exits from said plane

He didn't start smoking until he got Dave (unrelated to Cal, but I do think that Cal's influence grew and built over time, and possibly was even more extreme because of Dave's presence, so who knows where he'd be without it)

also neither he nor Mom really know how to cook, Bro a little more than Mom because she spent most of her time drinking and pretending to be a parent without putting the work in and Bro has been on his own basically since teenhood

He and Dave have been to Disneyworld (they got kicked out)

He was really into phreaking payphones as a teenager (lookin at u geometrician)

His first Halloween costume was Sam the Eagle

:)

[mirkwoodshewolf]

A heavenly reunion pt. 1; Queen x reader

*Author's note*

This is it guys. After almost 3 years of writing this series it's FINALLY come to the end.  Like all good things, they must end eventually so here it is. The LAST chapter of my Rock Angel series.

I first want to point out the YEARS (except Freddie's death date) DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. I'M NOT TRYING TO PREDICT THE FUTURE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. I just picked these random years to represent when the remaining members of Queen will pass, AGAIN THESE AREN'T REAL DATES AND I HOPE THEY AREN'T.

Pt. 2 will be up in just a few minutes so until then, enjoy this first part.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@queensdivas

@queendeakyy

@queen-paladin

@sparkleslightlyy

@starswin

@labessieisallama

@isabella-bby

@naturalswifty89

@onebigfangirlworld

@ssa-sadboi

@5sos-wdw

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@geek-and-proud

@wormzteef

@bohemiansweede

_______________________________________________________________

*3rd Person POV. June 23rd, 2051*

Rock star, animal rights activist, founder of organizations like ANGELS CURING AIDS, WORDS CAN HURT TOO; Victims and survivors of emotional and verbal abuse, and the ANGELS AGAINST STALKING that helps protect people from violent stalkers. Also apart of charities like the Mercury Phoenix Trust foundation. The Rock Angel (Y/n) Kline had lived a full life.

She continued to tour with Queen as they got many other partnerships throughout the years. But she most enjoyed collaborating with Adam Lambert as he reminded her of him, bright and ambitious just wanting to share his music with the world and he knew he could never fill in Freddie's shoes but he sure as hell made a name for himself in his own way.

She was also a part of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" film that had been made and got to know the actors playing the men that she had grown up with and came to see them as her true family. Ten years after the film released, her own story got to be told thanks to the rights of Paramount and the brilliant mind of Dexter Fletcher, who had directed the story of her boys and Elton John, another one of her dearest friends and mentors.

But now at the crippled age of 90, the Rock Angel now lived in the privacy of her home in London. She was forced to stop touring because just 3 years ago she was diagnosed with a form of dementia.

It was hard on her family and her 4 children and dozens of grandchildren even great-grandchildren to see the once strong woman they had once admired for so long and looked up to as a role model not only in music, but life.

In their current home of London, her husband of over 70 years Jack who had made a name for himself. After the whole stalking incident, Jack joined the ranks of the LAPD. He worked himself all the way to the top and became Chief for over 30 years before he retired by the time he was in his 60's.

He sat there by his wife's bedside stroking her long white hair as she lay there forced into bedrest. She looked up at him and whispered.

"Jack?"

"I'm here baby."

"Where are they? Where are my boys?" she asked.

"Our sons? They're just downstairs."

"No, no. I meant my boys." At those two words, Jack's heart broke as he looked at his wife sympathetically.

"Baby they've—they died. It's been so many years since they all left this world." At hearing her boys were dead, tears fell down her face but Jack held onto his wife and kissed the top of her head. "But I can show you their videos, if you'd like."

"Please. I need to see them. To tell them goodbye." Jack then reached for the I-pad and opened up the Youtube app and began typing in the very song that he knew he would need.

He knew his wife didn't have long and he wanted her to have one last happy memory of hearing the perfect song written by her boys.

Together they held the I-pad and soon the music video "These are the days of our lives" came on.

"Why does Fred look so sick?" she asked worriedly. Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to explain.

"He was suffering from AIDS, and it—really affected him love."

"I wish I could've taken care of him." She said as she stroked the screen every time Freddie came on screen. At the instrumental break as she watched Brian skillfully play the guitar, she smiled and said. "Bri....he was such a good guitar player."

"He was, but nothing compared to you." Jack praised obviously playing favorites. He then took notice of his wife growing tired as the song ended.

It was time.

"It's okay baby, you can rest now." And she did just that. Her breathing slowed right as Freddie spoke the last 'I still love you' line and the video ended. "Goodnight my Rock Angel. Be with your boys once again." He then let out a sob as he leaned against his deceased wife.

At 10:45am on June 23rd, 2051 (Y/n) Kline was pronounced dead at the old age of 90.

Everyone who had collaborated with the Rock Angel or had looked up to her all gathered at her funeral. Close friends and family all came to mourn at the loss of the last of the greatest Rock and Roll singers. She was buried in her birth town of Leicestershire, right next to her real parents.

*My POV*

I felt peaceful. My mind was no longer hazy. I could remember everything once again, but what confused me was where I was. I found myself walking through a long corridor but as I passed a mirror, I stopped and backed up to find a shocking surprise.

I was young again.

I looked to be about the age of 19, when I first met the guys. My hair was in the same long wavy fashion I once had before I cut it. I stroked along my cheek just to see if this was real or a dream, but as I stroked it I found that it was. Suddenly a door opened before me and I don't know why but I found myself walking toward it.

Now I was in what looked like an office with everything you would see. Filing cabinets, a large desk filled with paperwork but what caught my attention was the abacus that stood at the front center of the desk.

"Ahh (Y/n) Kline, please come forward." I turned to see a man around his 60's with short black hair, a grim like face with sharp cheekbones and icy blue eyes. He wore a black business suit and he was intimidating but for some reason I came forward toward the desk.

He sat down and pulled out a file and began reading through it humming to himself then he said.

"Place your hand over the abacus." I looked at it to see that the color code was white and black. White at top and black at the bottom.

"What is this?"

"This shall determine your next step. Just place your hand over it and let fate do the rest." I didn't know what this was gonna mean but again I saw myself place my hand over it and the second I did, it started going frantic.

Moving up and down frantically with no one even touching it. It was mostly balanced most of the way until it finally majority of the counters went white. The man smiled and said.

"Give my regards to those Rockstar friends' of yours. I'll be looking forward to your next concert." He then snapped his fingers and everything went bright.

Next thing I knew, I heard the sound of birds chirping and felt the sun beaming down on me. I was then greeted with wide open fields and a giant house along with several barn-like homes. It was like Garden Lodge and Rockfield farm mixed into one.

As I stood a few feet away from the main mansion-like house I swore from the second window of the white satin curtains I saw movement. I walked towards the house and placed my hand on the doorknob, I paused for a few seconds before I finally opened the door. I walked in and it was exactly like Freddie's home of Garden Lodge.

I walked through the threshold to see the grand staircase to my right, the long corridor ahead of me and the entrance to the living room to my left.

"Hello?" I said as I stood there. It was then I felt something nuzzle between my legs and I heard a meow. I heard it again and I looked down to see a very familiar face. "Hey, Delilah." I picked her up and held her as she purred and nuzzled my face. I scratched under her chin and she lowered her head to lick my hand.

"No it should be more like this." I heard a low, smooth baritone voice say.

"No, no and no Mr. tuxedo! Bernie has it like this and it shall remain this way. He and I are the genius piano and songwriting duo and it'll stick to this rhythm and timing." Another voice boasted out.

Oh my god.....It can't be. I set Delilah down and she took off running up the stairs as I crossed the living room into the parlor where Fred kept his piano to see two men that I had not seen in forever.

"David? Elton?" I spoke up. The two men turned toward me. David looked so much healthier than last I saw him and he looked younger just like me, in fact he looked about the same age he was when he did Live aid as well as working on the Jim Henson project 'the Labyrinth'.

Elton on the other hand looked about the age from when he was first starting off, back before he began experimenting with all the drugs and all that. The vibrant ginger hair but he still had on those flamboyant sunglasses he always loved to wear.

"Is that—really you?" I asked bewildered.

"Oh shit it can't be. The high angel herself, the Rock Angel?" Elton dramatic tone.

"Yes, it's me."

"Ohh darling. Welcome home." David greeted me with a wide smile and open arms as he walked up to me. He embraced me as he chuckled warmly and said, "Did you have a good life darling?"

"Uh-huh. I had the best life." I said, my voice muffled within his blue suit.

"It looked like you did love." We separated and I couldn't help but admire just how healthy he was.

"How have you been David?"

"Much better darling. No more chemo, I can finally breathe again."

"That's good."

"Alright you overgrown smooth talker, let me at her now." Elton proclaimed as he shoved David aside and immediately came up and kissed both of my cheeks before embracing me. "Oh darling we sure have missed you."

"And I you Elton. Life just hasn't been the same without your music."

"Been practicing those scales I taught you?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, whenever I could."

"That's my girl." He hugged me again and I buried my face into his shoulder.

"(Y/n)?" a choir of voices soon rang up. I felt my heart stop as I lifted my head, not believing what I was hearing. Elton let go of me and both he and David with soft smiles on their faces told me to go and see who it was. The four voices called out my name again.

I crossed through the parlor, ran across the living room until I came to the door and just halfway up the staircase, I felt my smile widen and tears fill my eyes.

"My boys."

"You're finally here!" Freddie proclaimed. My legs raced directly up the stairs and Freddie, Brian, Roger and John all gathered me at the center in a long awaited Queen group hug.

All I felt were arms wrapped around me tightly, kisses all over my head and face and gentle hair and back strokes. I don't even know how long we were in that hug for but I didn't care, all I cared about was the fact my boys were here all together. When we finally separated I finally got a good look at all four of them.

They were all so young and vibrant just like how I first saw them back in concert long before I became an intern, I would like to think they were now the same ages they were when they first played at the Rainbow back in 1974. Long hair and all.

"I can't believe you four are here." I praised.

"And we can't believe you're here. And with your long hair again, was this when you were most happy?" asked Brian.

"If by that you mean when I first became Miami's intern? Yeah, best day of my life. Do you guys hate it?"

"No darling we've loved you no matter what your hair length is." Freddie said as he stroked the ends of my hair.

"I only just hope you didn't bring along any extreme surprises. Belly button rings, more tattoos." Deacy teased me. I chuckled but felt tears fall down my face.

"Aww lovie what is it?" Roger cooed as I felt him rub my shoulder. All four of them looking at me with those concerned puppy dog eyes they all knew how to do.

"I'm sorry. It's just—I missed you four so much." They all awed as Freddie first took me in his arms and said with his head leaning against mine.

"I know darling. It seems like it's been forever since the five of us were together."

"Coming from you Fred you have no idea." I wept as I gripped onto him as tight as I could, burying my face into his long black hair which softly tickled my face.

God if there's anything I missed about Freddie, it was his warm hugs. They were always so warm and inviting, anyone who was lucky enough to be given any sign of affection from this loveable man was considered lucky, and I was fortunate to be one of those people, and now finally after almost 60 years, I was able to feel that affection once more.

We were now upstairs in the master bedroom to do some private catching up.

"Alright sister dear, come here you." Deacy said. I smiled and immediately went into his arms and he embraced me. As all of you know, after Freddie's death, Deacy was the one to take it the hardest. So much so that he hardly played at any Queen gigs except for maybe three occasions then by 1997 he officially retired and no one had heard from him since.

The guys and I respected his decision so in order to make sure he was alright, I kept in contact with Veronica and would occasionally ask how Deacy was doing as well as the kids. I had learned that the two of them had two more kids, Luke and Cameron and the two of them had been successful in their own ways, all of the Deacy kiddies had, especially Luke who followed in his dad's footsteps and played in a band of his own.

In fact with the permission of the parents, I had allowed my nephew Luke to play at a few of my tours, and god just seeing him play reminded me so much of his dad, not to mentioned he looked so much like him.

And it was an honor to play with a second generation of Deacon.

The sad news of Deacy's passing came to Jack and I from Laura on a cold November day in 2035. Out of the two of us, Jack was the most heartbroken because he not only lost a brother but his idol and mentor.

We were invited to the burial by decree of the Deacy clan but I made sure that through some makeup and wigs that Jack and I weren't recognized by press because we wanted this to be private. As Deacy would've wanted that.

"Ohh I've missed you so much (y/n)."

"Not as much as I missed you brother mine."

It was then my attention turned towards the last 2 members of Queen, the remaining members I kept working with till the end. Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Together in our lives after Freddie's death and Deacy's retirement, I had been there for everything Queen got to accomplish, and they did the same for me. In fact it was Brian who bestowed upon me my plaque to be initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before I was given my star right above Queen's.

I was also involved with some of the work they did for a little movie called "Bohemian Rhapsody", and they helped become a part of my movie "Set it all free Angel". I first turned my attention to Brian.

It had been almost 10 years since my movie came out and 20 for Queen's film Bohemian Rhapsody. I was in my home studio working on my next upcoming album when I had received a call from Anita telling me that Brian had passed away at the age of 93. It was a peaceful passing so he wasn't suffering or in pain which I was thankful for in a way, he's suffered through so much that if I wanted him to go out, it would have to be peacefully in his sleep.

The world was devastated at losing such an inspiring man. Not only in the music industry, but for his work in astrophysics, as well as the animal programs that he's helped funded and laws he helped raise awareness for.

When he died, I took over the business in his name and within 3 years; I finally helped get laws of abusing, harming or killing animals to be illegal and anyone caught doing that wouldn't get misdemeanors. They would face legal full sentencing of 20-50years in Federal prison. On the night the laws passed and I along with Brian's partnering animal rehab centers signed off on the law, I went to Brian's grave and told him everything.

I immediately glomped him into a hug and held onto his waist tightly. He embraced me back just as tight as I was holding him, me humming lovingly as I buried my face into his chest feeling him stroke down my hair. After what felt like forever, he separated from me and stared down at me with those loving hazel blue eyes of his as he placed both his hands at the top of my head before stroking them downward against each side of my head and ending by cupping my face in his hands.

"I am so proud of everything you've done (Y/n). I saw it all, thank you for continuing my legacy for animal rights."

"You taught me everything I needed to know about being kind and caring towards all creatures, so much so you helped inspire me to do my own animal rehabilitations and rescues. I just—wish I could've been there for you when you......"

"It was beyond your control love. But I didn't suffer. I knew you loved me, and would've done anything to come see me had you known. I never blamed you, so stop blaming yourself." I nodded as tears slipped down my face but with his thumbs he wiped them away before hugging me once more. I felt him kiss my temple before cupping the side of my face once more to kiss my nose.

Even as I got older and we were both in our senior years, he never once stopped with the nose pecks. I smiled and Eskimo kissed him before he pressed his forehead against mine. It was then I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to my right to see Roger standing before me.

Besides Freddie's death, I think the most devastating thing for me was when Roger died. It was about a year after Brian's death when I had gotten a frantic call from my godson Rufus that Roger had been taken to the hospital because of a stroke. Without hesitating, I got into the car and raced to West London Medical Hospital, where I met up with the Taylor pride.

I was frantic with anxiety and fear that I would lose yet a 3rd member of Queen. Over 48hrs passed when Rog finally regained consciousness and I was sitting right there by his bedside holding his hand. He spoke so softly it was like whispers on the wind and the only thing he wanted to do was go outside.

Reluctantly the doctors allowed it so my godchildren, and his wife Sarina took him out to the hospital garden and allowed me some one on one time with him. But I didn't know that that would be the last time they would ever get to talk to him. The last words he ever spoke to me were and I still remember it to this day, even up here in heaven.

"Brian and Freddie have come to collect me, they send out their love to you and Deacy. Look after the old bastard for us." And I literally felt his life slip away from my hand as he died right there in front of me.

For months I was depressed. I was allowed to go to the funeral and speak my eulogy and I sang at his funeral, this time my own rendition of Phil Collins' song 'You'll be in my heart.' It was also because of his funeral that Deacy and I got even closer than we had in years.

He had secretly gone to both Brian and Roger's funeral but it didn't take till Rog passed for him to physically approach me and we both just wept and cried from losing a father, a brother, a great friend together.

Finally when I finally gained the strength, me and the Taylor children all took a picnic up where Roger was born and just looked out beyond the fields of where his childhood home was and reminisced on all the wonderful memories we had of our father.

And it was from his death I produced my album 'Papa Lion' and dedicated it to him; 'To my Papa Lion, and all the other father lions out there. Keep protecting your children no matter what'.

"You gonna get into these arms or what love?" he asked me. I spoke not a word but felt tears in my eyes as I raced up and buried myself into his neck and dirty blonde almost brunette hair. He held me and spun me around, kissing all over my face humming and moaning lovingly.

When he finally set me down, he cupped my face just like Brian did but he gently leaned forward and very gingerly headbutted my forehead and the two of us nuzzled each other, rubbing our noses together.

Like a father lion and his cub reuniting with each other at last.

I held onto his wrists which still cupped the sides of my face and just allowed my tears to fall out but I couldn't stop smiling.

"I hope those are happy tears." He said to me. I sniffled and nodded.

"Yeah the—these are....ha-happy tears." I choked out.

"You know you don't have to be so strong around me, right lovie?" It was then I just broke down and wept as I embraced him. "Shhh, shh. I'm here my lion cub, I'm here. Papa lion is here." He whispered in my ear.

"God I have waited so long for you to say that." I whimpered out to hear him softly laugh and just hug me tighter.

"Oh my darlings.....my heart.....it's too full!" We heard Fred exclaim out dramatically. We both laughed as I nuzzled deeper into my papa lion's chest, happy to finally be reunited with them.

After finally calming down, we were all just sitting around the master bedroom. I was up against the couch leaning against Deacy's legs as he was currently brushing and braiding my hair.

"So you guys continuing to rock it out here in Heaven?" I asked.

"Don't you know it darling. Every good singer who has helped made a difference comes up here and we continue to live a peaceful eternity doing what we were born to do. Be performers." Freddie stated.

"In fact we just had our concert the other night. We got to perform alongside the Beatles." Said Roger.

"Shut up! The Beatles?!"

"You know it love, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr." Said Brian.

"Wow, I wish I could've seen it." I said.

"You will darling, we perform our concerts every single night. And it's always a mix mash of artists and bands collaborating together to perform the Greatest Heavenly Rock 'n Roll concert." Said Fred.

"Now that you're here poppet, you'll get the chance to perform with the best of the best." Said Deacy. I was flabbergasted.

"Holy......" I couldn't even finish it because I was just so shocked to think that I would be performing with the greatest artists long before my time and bands I wish I had the chance to record or perform alongside with. The guys all chuckled at me and I said.

"So that's why David and Elton were here."

"Mm-hmm. We're all performing together in tonight's show. Three artists of the 70's decade for the first time ever sharing the stage together." Said Brian.

"Ohh man what people would've killed to see that in person. I mean yeah you guys performed at the same venue like we did with Live Aid or did some recordings together but never all three of you guys on stage at once." I said.

"That's how it works around here." Spoke Deacy as he finished the last strand of my braid. I thanked him and observed the braid he had done and I commented.

"You've gotten better Deacy."

"Laura was good practice. My baby girl always wanted her hair braided."

"She may have gotten that from me, sorry." He playfully scowled at me but I cheekily stuck my tongue out at him. "Say Fred, where's Jim at? I figured if you were here, he would be too."

"Oh that man of mine, he's out tending the garden, come have a look." He escorted me to the back window and there I saw a field of flowers as far as the eye could see.

"Whoa. He's done all of that?"

"Been doing it since 2010 darling. Always a hard worker my husband. When he first came, I was worried he wouldn't like this appearance of mine, after all I didn't have my tache and my hair was much shorter than when I first met him."

"Jim loves you Freddie. He loves you no matter what you'd look like."

"And I did know. Turns out he's got a long hair kink." He whispered to me which made me choke out a laugh.

"Seriously?" He nodded ecstatically and that's when Deacy spoke up.

"We're still here Fred, no need to hear any of that."

"Oh god Deacy don't act so innocent. After all you were the one who wrote a song about pre-ejaculation." Deacy's mouth just gaped before turning stoic, and of course Rog and Bri were laughing their asses off. He turned to me and I shrugged saying.

"He's got a point."

"Okay yeah ha-ha fuck all of you."

"Oh come off it John. We mean no harm by it." Roger teased

"At least it's better than a car fucking song." Deacy fired back.

"That's not funny!" Roger proclaimed.

"It is kinda funny." Deacy sassed back.

"Okay, okay enough both of you. I had enough of your arguments to last an entire lifetime. I don't need to relive it now when I just got here." I stated.

"Sorry love." They both choired out.

"Oh (y/n), I do have a surprise for you though." Brian spoke up. I looked at him and said,

"What kind of surprise?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?" He said as he walked right up to me.

"If you tell me, I'll still act surprise." He chuckled and wrapped an arm around me.

"C'mon love, let's head outside." We soon went down the stairs and headed out of the house.

Brian lead me to an open field about a half mile away from the house. There was nothing but green for miles ahead.

"Brian what's this about?"

"You'll see." He then took his index finger and thumb and curled them inward like pinchers before placing them against his lips letting out a loud whistle. We stood there for a moment that was until I heard a bark. A very familiar bark. No it—it couldn't be.

Soon jogging up the hill about a mile away was a German Shepherd. His familiar traditional fur coat shined under the sun as he looked right at me. He let out a couple of barks and soon several more dogs came running up beside him.

They consisted of a golden retriever, 2 pit-bulls, 3 huskies (1 traditional black and white, another grey and white and the last one an auburn coloring), a collie, and 4 Labradors (2 blacks, a tan and one brown).

With each dog that this pack had, I knew every single one of them. I turned to Brian baffled and he just grinned at me before nodding telling me that they were who I thought they were. I turned back around and the German Shepherd let out a bark. I then let instinct take over and ran as I cried out.

"Bucky!" He soon came running after me, as did all the other dogs barking and panting as they all ran down the hill towards me. "C'mon kids! Come on!" I proclaimed. Each dog was running as fast as they could but Bucky and the black and white husky Shasta were leading the pack. "C'mon kids!" Bucky let out some barks as he raced ahead of Shasta and we met half-way.

Bucky leapt with both paws to my shoulders knocking me down onto the ground.

"Ohh Buck. I can't believe it's you! Ohh look at you boy! Good boy Buck!" A second later Shasta came up to me whimpering happily as his tail wagged. "Oh Shasta baby boy look at you! Hi~ Hi baby boy~." Soon enough my entire dog pack was all up on me grunting and whimpering happily as they all began to tackle me, wanting my attention and love.

Now while you all know I've had Bucky and Sammy as the family pets for Jack and the kids. The other dogs have a different story. The two pitbull brothers that I had named Titan and Bear were rescue dogs when I was a part of an actual rescue mission with one of my animal charities in saving dogs from a Mexican dogfight.

Whenever I was free from touring and recording, I made sure they were well taken care of and even let them stay at my home for awhile before they were finally adopted by a good family.

My triple threat huskies Shasta, Maya (the grey and white) and Eevee (auburn) were actually Kelly's dogs. Shortly after she left for college, she wanted to fill her house with dogs so she adopted these three and very often when she would visit or we would visit her, these troublemakers were always there. Sweet and loveable but stubborn little buggers but I wouldn't take them either way.

The Labradors were also rescue dogs that I helped out. The black one Raider and white one Rowdy were just left abandoned tied up in the backyard of their owners homes. The owners had abandoned them and left them for dead in the hottest summer of the year. But thanks to my team we got them out, sheltered and good homes but I occasionally checked in on them since I couldn't let them go.

The brown lab Cleopatra and the other black lab Midnight were once stray dogs till my son Freddie found them and gave them some food and water. Since he didn't have the heart to turn them to the shelter he adopted them. They even started their own little family since Midnight and Cleopatra were mates together and had many puppies together.

And finally the beautiful Collie was Jezebel. Jezebel was something special because she was actually my nana's dog. I hadn't seen her since I was probably five years old, she was already an old girl growing up but from what I remember, she was so maternal with me.

Whenever my nana was busy with something, she knew she could trust Jezebel with me.

After giving every single dog my attention I finally managed to stand up and see all the dogs in my life standing in a row.

"Jezzy, Bucky, Sammy, Titan, Bear, Shasta, Maya, Eevee, Cleo, Midnight, Rowdy and Raider. I don't believe it. Good doggies. My lucky dog pack. I can't believe you're all here. How did you find them all?"

"I was out strolling wanting to observe the stars when I found Bucky and Sammy. They immediately recognized me and just came running right for me. Soon enough they brought me to meet the rest of the dogs you've known and rescued. I was surprised about the collie but I knew she wouldn't be among them if she wasn't a part of your family."

"Yeah, Jezebel was my nana's dog. I called her Jezzy cause I couldn't quite pronounce her name. She was like my guardian dog angel. Always maternal until she passed away of cancer when I was just 5 years old." I walked up to her and pet her head and she leaned up against me. "She even saved me from almost being attacked by a stray dog one summer."

"Well I'm very glad she did." Brian said as he walked up and stroked her head and she gave his hand a friendly sniff and lick.

"And you took care of all of them?"

"Well I'm an animal activist through and through. If Freddie takes care of every cat that comes to Heaven, I thought I should take care of the animals I've grown fond of, but also the animals my little protegee has taken on herself. As well as the family dogs." I smiled and Brian and thanked him with a hug and he gratefully hugged me back.

As the day drew to a close and nightfall came, the boys had escorted me over to the Heavenly Concert hall. If we want to look at it scale wise, imagine it as Wembley Stadium during the time of Live Aid back in 1985. We drove in a royal golden carriage fit only for her royal majesties themselves.

"Wow, it's just like Wembley stadium."

"It is in a way, but it can fit an infinite amount of people. Any and all are welcome to watch us perform." Said Deacy.

"And we won't need to do soundchecks or anything?"

"Nope. This is heaven darling. Up here everything works to the full capacity and capability. No have to worry ever again about sound checks or power outages." Freddie stated. Our carriage soon stopped at the back entrance and the doors magically opened.

I stepped out first followed by Deacy, Roger, Brian and Freddie. Deacy wrapped his arm around me and guided me into the building and the five of us followed the sign down to the basement level where the dressing rooms were.

And it was like they said, I saw dozens of stars with the names of so many artists and bands before and during my time. Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, the Beatles, David, Elton, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon, George Michael, Phil Collins, Bob Dylan, and everyone and anyone you could think of.

"And here we are darling, your dressing room awaits." Roger said as he stood before a red door with a golden star with wings on each side that read in bold black letters my stage name ROCK ANGEL. He opened it up and I was in awe.

Inside was a very large room filled with furniture, a huge makeup station with large mirror decored with lamplights around the perimeter of it.

On the left side of the dressing room were hundreds of different outfit's I've worn throughout the years. Everything was there on hangers along with some of the hats I wore, fedora's, cowgirl, and my famed flat caps of various different colors and styles.

While on the right; I could see just music instruments like the Red Special Brian had made for me up against a special holder up along the wall right by my makeup stand.

"Is this my....."

"Go on and have a look darling." I heard Freddie say in my ear.

"Okay. I finally have my own mall." I walked in and was just in awe at everything. It looked like heaven had taken my master bedroom from my first home I had after becoming the Rock Angel and just put it all here.

I walked inside and said.

"Ooo, very nice shoes." I pointed out on the shoe wrack seeing some of the styles of shoes I've worn. From combat boots, to Adidas', flats, and even the high-heeled boots that Deacy always wore during the 1970's.

"We're glad you like them darling. Why don't you go around that corner and press the black button along the dresser." Deacy said. I walked further in and reached a dresser and found the black button. When I pressed it, a couple of shelves slowly opened up revealing almost every pair of sunglasses I've always worn.

"Oh my god! I've missed wearing these." I picked up a pair of my ray ban black and gold framed sunglasses. "Didn't I make these look good?" I quickly turned to see the guys were gone. "Guys?"

"Over here love." I heard Brian's voice say. I walked towards the right to see my boys standing or sitting along some of the foot stools.

"Oh there you all are. Ohh nice amps." I couldn't help but see the amps up along the wall. "I—I'm just...." Before I could continue a remote was tossed over at me by Roger as he said.

"Before you even say anything else. Type in combination 2-1-2." I muttered the combination to myself as I pressed the numbers and soon the closet before us opened and soon revolving around were various guitars and bass guitars, shelves soon opened revealing several pairs of drumsticks each imprinted with my name on them.

I had no words.

"Umm....this is.....I can't—" I jumped back a bit as the top shelves suddenly opened revealing two different microphones. One was a basic black but it was bedazzled with red gems while the other one was pure gold with golden gems.

"Elton and I had a little hand of having your microphones designed." Said Freddie with a modest shrug.

"I mean....guys this is......unbelievable. And this is all mine?"

"Oh darling you should see ours. It's practically the entire mansion back home."

"Each star that comes here is given the full custom of what they've enjoy back on Earth. And since you've favored how you once had your rotating dressers back in 2011, it's all here for you but advanced into your instruments as well." Said Roger.

"And if anyone has any suggestion like if they're close to another artist, they can submit some suggestions of what should be in said artists dressing room." Brian spoke up.

"Aww you guys, I love you." I said as I came up to them and we got into a group hugged.

"We love you too (Y/n) darling. Now hurry up and get ready, the concert is about to begin." The boys left me to my own business. I walked up to my clothes rack and went through every style and decided that if I was to do my first concert in Heaven, I might as well wear exactly what I wore for my first concert as the Rock Angel.

After getting ready and doing my makeup the same way Freddie had done for me that day in Madison Square Garden, I picked up my Red Special and put it around my neck and left my dressing room.

"The Rock Angel is back." I looked up to see the boys standing across me in front of their dressing room, dressed to the T like they had at the they did at the Odeon theater Christmas Eve 1975. I smiled and said.

"Well look at you guys, it seems like only yesterday I was sneaking my friends into the house while Joanna and Graham were at their Christmas party just to watch you guys live at the Hammersmith Oden theater." I sassed.

"Thank you love, now c'mon time to head to the stage." Roger said. The lads cheered and I followed behind as we all walked back up the stairs and went through the corridors of backstage. Hundreds upon hundreds of artists were getting themselves ready to go up and perform.

I watched as the boys did their typical body warmups to get themselves pumped up when I felt a nudge at my arm.

"You seem quiet poppet, everything okay?" I looked up to see Deacy standing beside me.

"You said anybody whose anybody comes to see these shows right?" He nodded and I said solemnly, "Do....do you think my family, like my mum and dad know that I'm here now? That I'm here performing?" I felt him wrap his arm around my shoulder and he said.

"It's possible. Anytime a new artist or band comes here, it's fully announced far and wide throughout Heaven. So there's a good chance they might be out there in the audience."

"I hope so. I just want to show them what I've achieved, I want them to be proud of me."

"They are poppet. Just like we are." He embraced me in a one armed hug leaning his head against mine.

"I really have missed these moments between us Deacy."

"So have I. And I've got a hell of a lot of comforting to catch up on."

"Well now's a good start."

"Oi you two! Are we going to perform or not?" The two of us smiled as we heard Roger's voice cry out to us. My brother looked down at me and he said.

"C'mon, let's go do our thing." I nodded and we headed towards the guys.

*3rd Person POV*

Once again it was concert time. Every soul that had passed into heaven that was a fan of Rock and Roll or music in general came from far and wide to come to the concert of concerts, even bigger than the Earthly event that Live Aid gave the world.

Generations of artists and musicians that had come from around the world from many different backgrounds came to this very stadium to give the performance of their afterlives. Thousands, almost a million people poured into the stadium as the lights were flashing and doing their test run for each artist that would perform that night.

Soon Bob Geldof came onto the stage and everyone applauded for him.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Heaven's Rock and Roll concert." Everyone applauded and cheered holding up signs of their favorite artists or bands that would be performing tonight. "It gives me great honor to announce that we recently were given a new arrival, but I won't give it away on who it is." The audience crowd because they wanted to hear who it was as Bob continued, "I'll leave that to the band who know her best. So without further ado I would like to bring up on stage the first band performance of this evening's festivities. These lads I knew personally and they helped make one of the biggest rock concerts even greater than I could ever imagine. These four individually talented young men rose to the stardom in the early 1970's before exploding into the worldwide phenomenon by the 1980's. Ladies and Gentlemen please bow before her royal majesties that is Queen!"

The crowd roared with applause as Bob left the stage and the stage grew dark. Soon the opening notes for "Now I'm here" began playing and everyone cheered louder as they began clapping in rhythm. Those who have seen and grew up seeing Queen live, knew exactly how to react and behave during a Queen concert and those who got to know Queen up here in heaven got a taste of what it would've been like had they seen them in person with all four of them up on stage.

Soon Freddie's silhouette and voice echoed through the speakers as he began to sing the song. When the song began to pick up, the lights on stage exploded as did fire from the sides of the stage as all four members of Queen were finally revealed to the crowd.

Freddie lead with the vocals and his mates and brothers backed him up on not only the vocals but their instruments, and ever the frontman he was, strutted the stage like it was his as his voice overpowered and reached out into the audience with a force unlike anything.

By the end of the song, Freddie proclaimed into the microphone.

"Thank you! Thank you, good evening everybody!" The crowd cheered as Freddie continued, "Oh it looks magnificent out there tonight. Okay my darlings, right now. Right now, we're going to take you for the first time ever we're taking you all to the battlefield. This is called Ogre Battle!"

The boys continued to play a few more songs like 'White Queen', 'Killer Queen', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Don't stop me now' and 'Son and Daughter' included with Brian's famous guitar solo giving Deacy and Freddie enough time to change clothes for the next half of the performance. Freddie now wearing the famed black satin outfit with his chest exposed and diamond fingernailed glove as well as the chain glove on the other.

"Yes thank you, thank you very much. Featuring Brian May on guitar!" Brian took a bow as the spotlight shined on him and the crowd cheered. "Now then my darlings, as I'm sure everyone's heard we have a new arrival. A very special girl to all four of us. How would you all like to meet her?"

The crowd roared with applause and soon Roger began doing one single rhythmic beat. Hearing the beat made the entire audience clap in that single beat rhythm.

"She first rose to the spotlight in the summer of 1981. A bright, charismatic young woman whose music has touched the lives of millions. To us she wasn't a shadow of our fame, she was an equal partnership. The like of which we had never knew we could ever ask for. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone up in the balcony give it up for Heaven's very own Rock Angel, Mrs. (Y/n) Kline!"

From up on the catwalk above the stage, the silhouette of the Rock Angel herself came up and it appeared that she actually had angel wings sprouting from her back as she began the first verse of her famed song "Set it all Free".

By the chorus, the screen lifted up and she hopped off the catwalk and gratefully fell from the 10ft catwalk onto center stage playing her Red Special as her boys backed her up as they always did whenever they performed this song together.

And seeing the two artists perform together, Queen and the Rock Angel, the crowd was in pure excitement bouncing up and down and crying out the lyrics to the well known song that the Rock Angel's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

But none were more happy to perform once again than the artists that were on stage. It had been forever since it was the five of them together up on stage and they couldn't help but look at each other. As the guitar solo came up, it turned into a guitar battle between the Rock Angel herself and Brian May which got the crowd really pumped up.

By the end of the song, everyone was chanting out 'Angel! Angel! Angel!'

"Hello Rock and roll heaven how's everyone doing tonight!?" The crowd welcomed her with a roar of applause. "God I can't believe I'm here performing with my boys once again. And right now we'd like to bring out a special guest for this next number." She turned to Deacy who nodded and began playing his bassline for "Under Pressure" which got the crowd applauding louder.

"This man is a well-known legend and the birth of a true 'flamboyant' hard rocker. And a very close friend of mine." Freddie started.

"Six time Grammy award winner, 4 time Brit award winner, actor, musician. Everyone put your hands together for Mr. David Bowie!" (Y/n) proclaimed into the mic.

It was then Freddie and (Y/n) began singing the first part of the song as at the center stage a circular hole began to open and soon rising up onto the stage was David Bowie himself. He wore a royal blue suit with a black undercoat suit shirt as well as the business white shirt. A light blue tie and black shoes.

He soon began his line of the first bridge as Freddie and the Rock Angel backed him up. When the second part of the song came up after Freddie's little vocalization, David gave the gesture for (Y/n) to take the second part of the song. And as she always performed it, she would lowly sing in her alto range before suddenly belting out to the perfect volume as she would hold the note out for as long as she could letting the two legends back her up.

Just like the record Freddie and Roger softly sung the first part of the break, then David came in before (Y/n) belted out the why vocals before the song picked right back up. It was something that could only be seen in Heaven. Three legendary singers performing one song.

David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and (Y/n) Kline the Rock Angel.

The three lead singers stood side by side with each other with David on the left, Freddie in the middle and (y/n) to the right. The three in almost rehearsed synchronicity began to sidestepped across the stage as all three voices blended the bridge that it could give one an eargasm.

Agreeing with each other and knowing what she could do to close the song, both David and Freddie stepped back with (y/n) completely unaware as she just allowed the song to consume her.

At the final note, she let out a proud controlled belt that was first heard at Freddie's tribute concert and it almost seemed like the sun was rising as the stage was lit up in a heavenly glow as she held the note. The entire audience was in an uproar as they gave a standing ovation to the Rock Angel herself.

She turned around and saw the five older men smiling at her and applauding her for a phenomenal performance that they have missed so dearly.

The concert continued as Elton John soon came up on stage and together he, Freddie and (y/n) sang 'I'm still standing' a song that was personal to all three of them in some shape or form but they knew this was the perfect song for them all to sing.

After a few more Queen songs, with the allowance of their beloved Rock Angel since her set was about to come up after theirs, she allowed them to stay and be her band as she would perform her hit songs before the souls of Heaven.

Songs like 'Who I am', 'So good,' 'Bridge of light', 'Rock angel', her rendition of 'Somebody to love', 'We'll be together', and with her boys already up there with her they did a few more duets of Queen songs like 'Friends will be friends', 'Spread your wings', 'Fat Bottomed girls', and 'Jailhouse Rock'.

Finally their time was up and as 'God save the Queen' played through the speakers, all five of them stood side by side each other and bid the crowd a goodbye and thank you.

After watching several performances from backstage, and when the concert finally came to a close it was time for the after party. So just outside in the back a beautiful garden was set up with refreshments and plenty of drinks to fit everyone's needs and all the performers of the night came out to talk amongst one another and to celebrate another well-performed concert.

As well as to welcome their newest achievement.

*My POV*

Oh my god. That was a thrill rush, and now being here at the after party I saw literally everyone. Elvis, Janis, the Beatles, Little Richard, Elton, David, Hendrix, everyone in rock and roll big names were gathered around this beautiful garden.

As I went to go grab some water I felt a hand tap my shoulder and there stood John Lennon himself.

"So you are the famous Rock Angel?" I swallowed my water and was completely star-struck.

"Y-yeah I.....Mr. Lennon I....."

"Please call me John."

"Okay, John. Can I just say.....just between us that you were always my favorite Beatle out of the group."

"Coming from you that's a huge honor. And now I can finally rub it into Paul's face the bugger." I laughed and that's when I heard a female voice say.

"Alright let me at her, where is she?" And there donned with her famous fur coat, tall Russian-like hat and red circular shades was Janis Joplin herself. "And there she is. The one female rocker better than me." She spoke as she came up to me.

"Oh no Mrs. Jop—"

"Ah-ah. Mrs. Joplin is not my name. Call me Janis baby girl." I blushed and she wrapped an arm around me and said, "You know, you and I aren't so different kid."

"How so?"

"Well we both struggled in our families and personal lives, got together with some male rockstars to form a partnership before splitting off to have our freedom. The only difference is, is that I wish I had your strength. I decided to call it quits with heroin being my way to kick the bucket."

"You were someone I did look up to. I mean yeah you had your struggles, but hell you didn't take shit from no one. When conservative minds at the time wanted you to do it their way, you said....."

"'Fuck you. I'm doing it my own way!'" She finished off which made the two of us laugh. "Yah know something baby girl, I like you. Promise me for Lady's night you'll do a song with me?"

"It would be an honor Janis." She smiled and hugged me tightly.

"Alright my darlings, may we have everyone's attention?" Freddie's voice soon spoke up as he was now standing on top of a table. Everyone looked up and as the boys of Queen stood up front Freddie continued, "First of all magnificent show all of you. So cheers my lovely darlings." Everyone of us raised our glasses in the air saying 'cheers'.

"We'd also love to specifically say a wonderful show for our newest arrival," Brian spoke up. He turned to me and extended his hand out for mine. I took it and he gently pulled me up front so that everyone could see me.

"Our beloved Rock Angel herself, (Y/n) Kline." Roger spoke up as he smiled warmly down at me.

"To the Rock Angel!" Deacy stated as he raised his cocktail glass in the air.

"To the Rock Angel!" Everyone choired at me. I bashfully smiled and said.

"Thank you, it was an honor to see most of you perform tonight, and it was great to perform with someone of you once again after so many years. I hope I have the privilege to perform with every single soul here." I said.

We then raised our glasses once more and the mingling and partying continued long into the night.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

TOP 12 WICKED QUEEN PORTRAYALS

@sunlit-music​ @mademoiselle-princesse​ @princesssarisa​ @superkingofpriderock​ @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark​ @amalthea9​ @theancientvaleofsoulmaking​ @astrangechoiceoffavourites​ @giuliettaluce​ 

Alongside the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella’s Stepmother, The Giant from Jack and The Beanstalk, The Witch from Hansel and Gretel and Bluebeard, The Wicked Queen from Snow White is one of the most iconic fairy tale villains of all time. A lot of people come to consider her the real protagonist of the fairy tale, since is her desire to be considered the Fairest of All and her actions to keep that title what puts the narrative in motion. And today, i will rank my favorite portrayals of this fascinatingly nasty foe.

12º Miranda Richardson as Queen Elspeth in Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001)

Talk about being typecast: before that turn as Snow White’s Evil Queen, Richardson had portrayed an Evil Sorceress Queen and Stepmother in Jim Henson’s The Storyteller (’The Three Ravens’ episode) and she was a wicked Sorceress Stepmother in Tim Burton’s Sleep Hollow. So it was neat for her to be called for the role of the most famous Evil Sorceress Queen and Stepmother in this Hallmark TV Movie. Elspeth is the sister of a strange, mysteryous creature known as the Granter of Wishes. Having been recently released from his freezing prison, the Granter of Wishes makes a spell to make her look beautifull for human standards, and marries her to the newly crowned and widowed King John. At first she looks content with the prospect, but as time passes, she grows more and more unsatisfied. Her source of joy is the Magic Mirror that praises her beauty, and casting spells to turn gnomes into garden statues. But when the Magic Mirror says that Snow White’s beauty surpasses hers, the unsatisfaction gets mixed with paranoia, and Elspeth slowly abuses her power in constantly harming other people, until there is no magic enough...

11º Herta Kravina in Schneewitchen (1971)

This german TV Movie is the most faithfull adaptation of the Grimm’s tale original edition, not only keeping the three murder attempts by ribbon/lace/corset, hair comb and apple, but also being the only one to show the Queen dancing to death with hot iron shoes in Snow White’s wedding. This is enough to make it worth a checkout. The other reason i find this version interesting is how the Queen comunicates with the Magic Mirror: they sing to each other. And Kravina has a really good voice (no wonder she was a voice actress for Peggy Lee in the first german/dutch dub of Disney’s Lady and The Tramp). Sometimes that is enough to get a spot in a ranking.

10º Mari Yokoo/Caterina Rochiara/Regina Reagan/Carol Jacobanis as Queen Crystal in The Legend of Snow White (1994)

From the outside, Queen Chrystal appears to be calm, regal, and sophisticated, but in reality, this collected and stately facade hides an extremely sadistic, hateful, cold and sinister person. She is ruthless, jealous and obsessive and wants nothing more than to be the fairest in the land. She also has an extreme vanity that made her utterly intolerant of rivals. Being solely focused on the idea of becoming the fairest of all, Queen Chrystal does not appear to be significantly involved in governing her husband's kingdom, though the skeletal remains of prisoners in her dungeon point to her being a villainous ruler. In the end, her mad vanity and jealousy of her stepdaughter Snow White drove her to murderous insanity. Later is revealed that Queen Chrystal is not unredeamably evil as everyone thins, but an actually kind and gentle person who is possessed by an Evil Spirit. 

09º Diana Rigg as the Queen in Canon Movie Tales: Snow White (1987)

This lady is the personification of paranoia multiplied by the double. Why? Because the Magic Mirror didn’t needed to say that the little child Snow White was the fairest, this queen just feared so much that the princess’s beauty would outgrow hers that she ordered the huntsman to kill her. Basically: run, she is bad news.

08º Jeri Arredondo as Sly Fox in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales For Every Child (1995)

Sly Fox... What a cunning diva. People try to counsel to not use alone a Magic Mirror that is a portal to the spirit world, but who says she listens? She is just there to hear the singing of her praises, and will try to eliminate anyone who gets on her way. She even goes so far as taking the appearance of the kind hearted nurse Sage Flower to lure her stepdaughter White Snow to eat the poisoned appled. What is not to love about that bastard?

07º Kazue Komiya/Arlene Banas as the Queen in Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics (1989)

Interestingly this encarnation starts naturally cold, calm and collected, ocasionally at the princess Snow White to see if she can ever grow more beautifull than her, and dismissing the girl with contempt. It is years later that she lets go of acting calm and collected, because after hearing some gossips in the palace, she asks Snow White if she thinks of herself as more beautifull than the Queen, and her stepdaughter reacts by exclaiming that the Queen is vain and cruel, and to her eyes that makes her ugly. So besides the desire of being considered the most beautifull, you get the feeling that this Queen pursues Snow White as a way to shut a person that dares to rebell against her, wich ads new interesting dimentions to their antagonism.

06º Dorothy Cumming as Queen Brangomar in Snow White (1916)

Brangomar was once a lady in waiting of the palace. But one day, she met the powerfull Witch Rex, who offered to give Brangomar anything she wanted. And what Brangomar wanted was to become a beautifull Queen. Wich was achieved by a faustian deal where Witch Rex would cast a spell that killed Imogene, the previous Queen, while in return Brangomar would have to find a way of getting Snow White’s heart for the Witch. Years have passed, and now Brangomar  must kill the princess to pay her debt, or else everything she got will be lost. Hey, here is a way of making a villain tragic, almost simpathetic and complex while keeping clear that she is still a villain!

05º Vanessa Redgrave as the Queen in Faerie Tale Theatre (1984)

The most loud and bombastic portrayal of the Wicked Queen ever put on screen. Bringing to television her sperience from stage, that allows some more over the top emotional reactions, Redgrave had the time of her life in that role, indulging in twirling, preening and screening as much as she could, and his Queen is all the most fun for it.

04º Gudrun Landgrebe as the Queen in Schneewittchen (1992)

What i live about Landgrebe’s Queen is her range: at first she acts all humble, discreet, cold and mysteryous. Then her husband leaves to fight in a Crusade, and she trows the white veil and gray clothing of humility to show a diva red hair and orange dress, as to say “Hey, the King leaved, i have all the power here now and you must do as i say”. Later, a knight comes, offering a magical crystal ball that connected to a mirror says all the truth, and the Queen takes posession of it to ask about her beauty. When Mirror says that the most beautifull woman in the kingdom is Snow White, she gets infuriated, than goes to carefully plan ways to eliminate the princess once and for all. The highlight is when she takes the disguise of a russian male doctor to offer the apple (where she injects poison into with her ring) to Snow White.

03º Maria Antonieta de Las Nieves in El Chapulin Colorado: Blancanieves y los Siete Churín Churín Fun Flais (1978)

This three part episode of the mexican comedy superheroe show is a loving parody of the Disney version, that stands out as an enjoyable retelling of the classic fairy tale in its own right. Interestingly, while most of the comedy in the episode is delivered in the form of over the top slapistick, de Las Nieves’s delivers a straight faced, contained performance. Wich makes her answers to the absurd situations in the story all the more funny.

02º Patricia Medina as the Queen in Snow White And The Three Stooges (1961)

This lady was a hell of a foe: she not only antagonizes Snow White for the title of the Most Beautifull, going so far as to lock the princess in a dungeon for no crime at all, but also, alongside her partner in crime Count Oga, ordered a murder attempt aggainst Prince Charming when he was a child, to prevent him from marrying Snow White, and this way she could become ruller of the kingdoms of Fortunia and Bravuria. Troughout the film, you think that she could win, since she has powerfull magic, spy and a mighty army at her comand, wich makes the viewer get all the more excited on the seat, that is how enjoyable Medina’s Queen is.

And my Number One Portrayal of the Wicked Queen is...

01º Lucille La Verne as the Queen in Disney’s Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The first encarnation of the character that i ever saw in my childhood, and the one that still sends chills/shivers to my spine. As a young Queen, she rarely smiles, acting cold and calculating, intidimidating who is subordinate to her with the expression of her eyes and highbrows. And as a Crone, she lowdly indulges in her cruelty, offering the poisoned apple to her pet raven to scare him, and mocking the dead skeleton of a prisoner inside the castle’s dungeons. That balance between cold calculism and loud cruelty, where both are equally unsetling and scary, is something very hard to achieve, but i think this encarnation did a very good job in achieving that balance, that every other  portrayal that camed tried to draw influence from it ever since. And that’s why Disney’s Wicked Queen is my Number One portrayal.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Addi Adamets in Schneewittchen (1955), Marianne Christina Schiling in Schneewittchen (1961) and Sonja Kirchberger in Sechs Auf Einen Streich (2009)

[top-notch-turtle-blog]

Part 4 of me being self-indulgent and giving my impressions of every version of the Ninja Turtles I’ve seen: Leonardo edition (in chronological order, I am NOT ranking them)

87′ Leonardo- Boyscout; once apologized to a scarecrow after he sliced it in half because he thought he might have accidentally killed a man, stupidt, I love him

90′s Jim Henson Muppet Leonardo- Here physically but not in spirit 

2k3 Leonardo- Mr. Mom, has kind of a mental breakdown after he gets stabbed somewhere around like Season 3 and has to go brood for a while, I love him tho, he’s got a good heart 

2k7 Leonardo- Deadbeat leader; went off to play irl Call of Duty in the jungle somewhere (stupid-ass), told Raphael he sucked to his face (mean) 

2012 Leonardo- Nerd boy goody-two-shoes;;; almost dies too much, got his ass kicked so hard he became Seth Green (I love him) 

Bayverse Leonardo- bastard, fuck this guy, I don’t like him, that is not my son

Rise of the TMNT Leonardo- LOOK AT THIS SHITHEAD. He’s so good, his whole narrative purpose is to be obnoxious, like, god, what a mood;;; big gay energy, I love him so much, he is my son 

Batman vs. TMNT Leonardo- Watch yo profamity~, kicked Ra’s al Ghul in the crotch, straight up was ready and willing to throw down with Batman. He’s very good

AGAIN, HAVEN’T SEEN THE COMICS, THIS IS ALL I KNOW~

[telecomfox701]

The Storyteller Short Story

The Storyteller Short Story Pdf

Storyteller Short Story 1045 Words 5 Pages Leslie Marmon Silko, a contemporary writer and Laguna person, uses Storyteller as a new way to express and connect oral tradition and writing.

Saki's classic short story, 'The Storyteller'. Read by Mike Bennett. Also available as a podcast: more readings.

Feb 25, 2021 “ The Storyteller” is a short story by Saki about a man who tells a group of children in his train carriage a captivating, though somewhat irreverent, story. On a train ride, three children ask.

The Storyteller By Saki

The Storyteller Jim Henson A Story Short

'Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakable ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never been allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If I had not been so extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this moment.' However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick that he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of her, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a little pig instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience clinked against the medals for good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three medals for goodness.'

[papermoonloveslucy]

BOB HOPE’S WORLD OF COMEDY

October 30, 1976

Produced and Directed by Jack Haley Jr.

Written by: Charles Lee with Gig Henry, Jeffrey Barron, Katherine Green, and Jack Haley Jr.

Bob Hope (Himself, Host) was born Lesley Townes Hope in England in 1903. During his extensive career in virtually all forms of media he received five honorary Academy Awards. In 1945 Desi Arnaz was the orchestra leader on Bob Hope’s radio show. Ball and Hope did four films together. He appeared as himself on the season 6 opener of “I Love Lucy.” He did a brief cameo in a 1964 episode of “The Lucy Show.”  When Lucille Ball moved to NBC in 1980, Hope appeared on her welcome special. He died in 2003 at age 100.

Lucille Ball (Herself) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in April 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon, which was not a success and was canceled after just 13 episodes.

Neil Simon (Himself) is a playwright and screenwriter responsible for more than 30 plays, most of which were seen on Broadway and adapted into films.  At the time, one of his most enduring plays The Odd Couple was being done on television. In 1983 became the only living playwright to have a New York theatre named in his honor. In 1960, when it was still called the Alvin Theatre, Lucille Ball appeared there in the musical Wildcat.

Don Rickles (Himself) worked as a stand-up comic in nightclubs for nearly 20 years before making his film debut in 1958. Rickles was known as an insult comic and became a staple of Hollywood roasts. In “Lucy the Fight Manager” (TLS S5;E20) he made his first and last acting appearance with Lucille Ball, but would be seen with her on variety shows and specials through 1988. Rickles was the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the animated Toy Story franchise. He died in April 2017 at age 90.

Norman Lear (Himself) is a television writer and producer responsible for such hits as “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “One Day at a Time,” “The Jeffersons,” and many others. He received three Emmy Awards for his work on “All in the Family.”  

Caroll Spinney (Big Bird) started playing Big Bird on “Sesame Street” in 1969. In 2000, Big Bird was named a Living Legend by the United States Library of Congress. Created by Jim Henson, Big Bird is one of two Muppets to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Spinney has been honored with four Daytime Emmy Awards for his portrayals on the series and two Grammy Awards for his related recordings. Two recordings of Spinney's voice have earned Gold Record status.

As with many Bob Hope specials, the show is sponsored by Texaco.

Bob Hope's opening monologue talks mainly about the Presidential Election, which would take place in two weeks. Incumbent president Gerald Ford ran against Jimmy Carter. He also touches on the World Series, the Swine Flu epidemic, Zsa Zsa Gabor's multiple marriages, and the CB radio craze.

Bob's first guest is Big Bird from “Sesame Street” (Caroll Spinney). Big Bird does an ad-lib impersonation of Jack Benny that makes Hope laugh. This kicks off a montage of clips about animals.

A pet shop staffed by Bob Newhart 

Jackie Gleason playing golf with Mildred, a chimp in How To Commit Marriage (1969)

Roy Rogers and Trigger “the wonder horse”

Julie London with puppies who prove not to be housebroken

Dan Rowan with a horse and Dick Martin with a camel 

Hope with his dog in a vet's waiting room and Betty Grable there with a race horse

Hope and Greer Garson in divorce court fighting over their dog, Mr. Smith

Lassie as the subject of “This is Your Life” in a spoof from “The Bob Hope Show”

Next Hope introduces a montage of clips featuring international stars.  

Maurice Chevalier (France)

Eva Gabor (Hungary)

Zsa Zsa Gabor (Hungary) with Angie Dickinson

Ingrid Bergman (Sweden)

Anita Ekberg (Sweden) with William Holden and Robert Strauss

Olivia Newton John (Australia)

Rex Harrison (England) and Lilli Palmer (Poland) with Janis Paige

David Niven (England) with Marilyn Maxwell

After a Texaco commercial, Bob introduces Lucy Ricardo aka Lucy Carmichael aka “the bionic woman of comedy” - Lucille Ball. 

Lucy reminisces with Bob, which leads to a black and white clip of a sketch from “The Bob Hope Show” (September 24, 1962). In it, Lucy plays a District Attorney and Bob a gangster named Bugsy Hope.

Back on stage, Bob asks Lucy the secret to her show's endearing success. She says that it has to do with the realatable domestic situations created by the writers. Bob add that the physical comedy gives her comedy world-wide appeal. Lucy says that as of last count her shows were seen in 79 countries. Lucy says she's heard herself dubbed in Japanese, and that in South America it is HER who as the accent. Asked about being a legend, Lucy says it is “kind of like an obituary” but she's very grateful.

After another Texaco break, Bob talks about slapstick and introduces a montage of clips.

Ernie Kovacs trying to sell his house during an earthquake

Bob as Bobby Riggs playing against Billie Jean King (Ann-Margret)

Hope and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as astronauts walking in space

Jack Benny using hidden cameras in his home to avoid paying Hope a guest-star fee

The second hour of the special kicks off with Hope introducing playwright Neil Simon. They talk about writing, the difference between drama and comedy, and ethnic humor, which is the cue for the next montage of clips about vaudeville.

Hope and Crosby do a routine

Hope, Crosby, Steve Allen, and Jack Paar are child actors competing for the same job

Danny Thomas as a candy seller interrupting Hope's act by stealing all his punchlines

Donald O'Connor as Wingo the Magnificent, a knife thrower, with Hope as Courageous Targo, his human target

Hope introduces Don Rickles, who promotes his new show “CPO Sharkey” which he compares to Phil Silvers in “Sergeant Bilko.”  Hope says he's been the victim of insult comedy, which begins a montage of clips where Bob is insulted by:

Milton Berle

Tony Randall

Redd Foxx

Glenn Campbell

Gina Lollobridgida

Jerry Colonna

Dorothy Lamour

Tony Bennett

Fred MacMurray

Joan Crawford

George Sanders

Frank Sinatra

Troy Donahue

Hedda Hopper

John Wayne

Dyan Cannon

Debbie Reynolds (with Jack Benny)

Juliet Prowse

Bob Hope introduces Norman Lear, who mentions he has no shows on NBC. They talk about “Mary Hartman Mary Hartman,” the 'Family Hour,' his flops like “Hot L Baltimore,” and Archie Bunker. The next batch of clips is about satire.  

Johnny Carson as a playboy movie star Rock Carson appearing on a talk show 

Hope, Burt Reynolds and Dyan Canon spoof the TV series “Paper Moon”  

A sketch called “Bananaz” (��Bonanza”) starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Juliet Prowse

A “Batman” spoof starring Martha Rae as Bat Girl and Bob Hope as the villain Lobsterman

Medical dramas are poked fun at by Hope, Barbara Eden, and Lee Marvin

After a commercial, the montages are about dancing. Some of Hope's choreographed clips: 

Dancing with Raquel Welch

Doing Eddie Foy's famous sand dance

Soft shoe with Pearl Bailey

A trio with Jeanne Crain and Betty Hutton

A challenge dance with George Burns

Rare footage of Dean Martin dancing alongside Hope

Polly Bergen, Jimmy Durante and Hope dance as babies while on their knees (above photo)

A partner dance with Ginger Rogers

Hoofing with Hope and Jimmy Cagney

Modern dance with Ann-Margret

Hat and cane steps with Sammy Davis Jr.

Hope wraps up the special with a look at some of the comedians of the past.  

Budd Abbott and Lou Costello (above photo)

Fred Allen

Gracie Allen

Cliff Arquette aka Charlie Weaver

Mischa Auer

Robert Benchley

Jack Benny

Willy Best

Fanny Brice, the original 'Funny Girl'

Joe E. Brown

Billy Burke

Eddie Cantor

Jack Carson

Charles Correll, Amos of “Amos 'n' Andy”

Wally Cox

Joan Davis

Marie Dressler

Leon Errol

W.C. Fields

Billy Gilbert, the greatest sneeze in show business

Ted Healy and the Three Stooges

Hugh Herbert

Judy Holliday

Edward Everett Horton

Buster Keaton

Edgar 'Slow Burn' Kennedy

Ernie Kovacs

Burt Lahr

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy

Harold Lloyd

Carol Lombard

Harpo and Chico Marx

Donald Meek

Victor Moore

Jack Norton, the perennial drunk

Franklin Pangborn

Joe Penner

Will Rodgers

Irene Ryan, Granny of “The Beverly Hillbillies”

Charlie Ruggles

S.Z. 'Cuddles' Sakall

Max Sennett, king of the Keystone Cops

Arthur Treacher

Burt Wheeler and Robert Wolsey

Ed Wynn

This Day in Lucy History – October 29th

“The Diet” (ILL S1;E3) – October 29, 1951

"Visitor from Italy" (ILL S6;E5) – October 29, 1956

"Lucy Buys a Sheep" (TLS S1;E5) – October 29, 1961

"Lucy and Andy Griffith" (HL S6;E8) – October 29, 1973

[flapperfromthefuture]

Since the weather has been alternating between pleasant and apocalyptic lately, I decided to lean in to cheerful existential dread and visit my local Toys R Us exactly six days before it closed forever.

I have never willingly entered a Toys R Us.

Even as a toys-obsessed child, I hated Toys R Us. My parents used to drag me to Toys R Us to buy holiday presents in the barbarian days before online shopping and every year I hated it. I was the kind of child who loathed the sounds of other children, and thanks to having a nurse for a mom and a cop for a dad, I was equally fearful of germs and pedophiles, and all too aware that Toys R Us was a magnet for both.

And now it’s bankrupt.

I entered the Toys R Us with no sense of sadness or nostalgia. I feel terrible for the retail employees who are out of a job and are still working hard even as the clock ticks down. The CEOs and their cronies will fail upwards into other mediocre vanity positions that leave ample time for scouting vacation properties and playing golf. Their portfolios won’t miss a beat. They might go on TV once in a while and rail against those darn millennials and their online shopping creating a terrible world without a nice local box-shaped windowless hell void filled with screaming children and communicable bacteria.

I love online shopping.

But I wasn’t at the Toys R Us just for the sake of symbolism. I was on a mission.

My best friend Stella’s birthday is coming up. She loves Funko Pops and I usually give her one for either her birthday or Christmas. Funko recently came out with a line of Fraggle Rock characters. Stella and I loved Fraggle Rock back in the day. When I told her that there were now five different Funkos of the characters, she immediately said, “Do they have Sprocket? I only want Sprocket. He’s my favorite.”

Sprocket was the adorable sheepdog who was constantly attempting to alert his human to the presence of the Fraggles, but eventually befriended them and even got to Fraggle Rock a couple of times.

There are five Fraggle Rock Funkos, but only Sprocket was made a Toys R Us exclusive, and I have no idea why (would Jim Henson, bless his beautiful soul, have allowed that? Never). The others are everywhere, but not Sprocket.

I tried to buy him from the Toys R Us website, but nothing can be purchased from the Toys R Us website while the end is nigh. Even their virtual real estate is shutting the doors.

So I went out into the snow-threatening sunshine and ignored the actual looming dark clouds over the Toys R Us. For friendship, and Fraggle Rock.

I instinctively braced myself for the chaos and whizzing carts and simultaneous toddler and parent meltdowns of my youth, but the store was quiet. A song from Mary Poppins played over the loudspeaker. You know, the one that the crazy uncle sings when he’s floating in midair and can’t stop laughing?

Most of the shelves were cleared and marked with caution tape, like the store was a crime scene or under quarantine. Everything had a giant sale tag, even the fixtures.

The few shoppers all had young kids with them. One mom was explaining to a little girl, “The store is going out of business, that’s why everything is on sale.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I was the lone adult without a child in the store—just the kind of person that my dad warned me about.

I needed to make this snappy. So I took only a second to ponder what a deal I could get on a brand new Ferrari (I could drive it right out of the store!) before heading right for the big Funko display.

I actually clapped my hands like I was psyching up for a wrestling match and said to myself, out loud, “Okay, you can do this. You just have to find Sprocket. Find Sprocket!”

Now I was the kind of person that both my parents warned me about.

I turned over the entire display like Indiana Jones hunting for a lost artifact, but there were no Sprockets to be found, or any of the other Fraggles.

Maybe Stella would rather have Robert Trujillo from Metallica? He’s been their bassist since 2003!

90% of the remaining Funko inventory was Lucky, the one-horned goat from Despicable Me 3, which I didn’t see yet someone made over a billion dollars.

So either Lucky didn’t catch on as much as the marketing team predicted or someone made way too many Luckys, and now they’re trapped in the last Toys R Us, with Robert Trujillo and five Elenas of Avalor, as the lights flicker off for the last time.

If anyone wants to hear my super dark pitch for Toy Story 4, I’ve got it.

I was pondering what to do when I spotted this abandoned single shoe under an empty Star Wars showcase.

And that reminded me of the rainy grey day that my friend Maggie was driving me to one of our grad school evening classes, and I saw a child’s shoe in a storm drain, and I said, “It always makes me really sad to see a lost shoe all alone like that,” and without missing a beat, Maggie said, “That’s because you’re Jewish.”

Anyway, just like every other time I’d ever gone to a Toys R Us, they didn’t have the one thing I really wanted.

Mary Poppins was singing Jolly Holiday with the dancing penguins. It was time to go.

I left after a quick backtrack to the car aisle to admire this practical vehicle that I think would really reflect my lifestyle and aspirations, and a dash to the Teletubbies shelf, where I could not resist squeezing all their tummies and making as many laugh in creepy unison as possible.

I found a Sprocket Funko right away on Amazon. At the same time, I bought a toy for Lumi and my textbooks for my upcoming classes on microbiology and pathophysiology—aka, the study of disease-causing germs. I can’t wait.

      Toys R Us Armageddon Since the weather has been alternating between pleasant and apocalyptic lately, I decided to lean in to cheerful existential dread and visit my local Toys R Us exactly six days before it closed forever.

[bee-and-bird]

The Right Words

Authors: D. and K., written collaboratively

Inspirations: Directly inspired and based on Jim Henson’s Labyrinth film, minor inspirations include Seelie/Unseelie faerie lore and other such myths

Word Count: 1,200

Chapter: 1/?

Genre: Romance/Slow Burn/Fantasy 

This is a work of fiction based upon Jim Henson’s 1986 movie Labyrinth, it includes some of the characters of the series and plotpoints but is a transformative work that uses these things as building blocks and quickly diverges from the story of the movie. This work is largely self indulgent and written primary for the enjoyment of its authors, if other’s find it entertaining however we’ll be happy to hear it! 

The Aerie - also known as 'the Nest', 'The Pit', or more properly as the Throne Room - was alive with the squawks of birds and goblins, playing and posturing as their King splayed himself with a lazy elegance across his large throne. The room was enormous, with curved, vaulted ceilings, a huge central skylight, and large, open air 'windows' in the walls to either side of the throne, surveying the Kingdom, which was dominated by a sprawling Labyrinth. Lights twinkled in the Goblin City at the base of the Castle, as dusk turns to evening. The King, though not particularly tall, made an imposing figure due to his sheer presence in a room. With caramel skin, broad, muscled shoulders and arms and a trim waist with equally powerful legs, he oozed athleticism. His features, like many of his race, were sharp and angular - high cheekbones, a hard, triangular jaw and a beak-like nose, reminiscent of a bird of prey finished off the look. This was where the resemblance to humanity ended, though. Black scales, like those on the feet of a bird, dotted his temples and scalp line, drawing attention to both his ravenswing hair (and that's literal - it was actually feathers) and his inhuman eyes. Bright yellow irises in black sclera peered into a crystal, where he watched a scene unfold with a strange, still intensity. The focus of the scene? A handsome blonde human with too many burdens upon his shoulders....(edited)

Lysander didn't have many friends. Perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. It had been so since childhood, cast out and looked on with fear by other children and adults alike, because his parents mysteriously disappeared one night, leaving him all alone when he was only a toddler. ‘That boy is bad luck,’ they'd say. 'Touched by the devil', 'An omen', 'He doesn't seem right'. He made everyone uncomfortable, but not so much that some wouldn't let him sleep in their barn at night, for a price of chores and being gone as soon as breakfast was done.  His education was earned from helping around the Church, which is where he learned to read, and then with kind elder members of the town, when they chose to tell him stories. And so he reached adulthood with little friends, and poor social skills, but a good work ethic. In that he would work until asked to stop, just to have a place to sleep at night. Having lived the way he did his favorite story, of course, was of the fair maiden who was whisked away by the King of the Goblins; taken somewhere that she never had to work again, and was always treated with respect. It was a story he heard spoken first, before he managed to find a written version. It was one of his few possessions, along with his ratty clothes that were a touch too big. It was on this night that Lysander was pacing in a field, reading the book aloud to himself by the fading daylight as if it were a play.

"What everyone didn't know was that The Goblin King had fallen in love with the... boy." He hesitates before changing the pronouns, glancing around swiftly to confirm that yes, he was still alone. Too dangerously close to the woods at this time of night for others to come see what he was doing. "And had given him magic words to say..." A hand is placed against Lysander's hip as he pauses again, then snaps the book shut. "Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, take me far away from here." He says it under his breath, looking towards the treeline in a challenging way. Those were, of course, not The Right Words. The boy had gone off script.

Back in the Aerie, still watching through the lens of the crystal, the Goblin King slumped. Peasants he was surrounded by peasants. "Shhhh He's gonna says the words!""No, you shutup!""Where'd he learn that rubbish? Doesn't even start with 'I wish...!" Chattered the goblins, as a few had come to watch as well, perching on the top of the throne, or just behind the King's shoulder, or at his feet. One wouldn't know it, for the boots he wore, but his feet resembled those of a bird as well - three large, clawed toes, with a fourth sticking out from his heel through a special gap in the shoes. It resembled spurs, to any who didn't look more closely. "Hush," His smooth baritone cut across the twittering easily, a hand gesturing for the goblins to be still. He was still watching, after all.

Lysander runs a hand through his mop of curls, looking back to the book and opening it once more. There was barely enough light now to read what was on the page, but he'd gone over every word so many times, he knew the story by heart. There's hesitance in his expression as he glances towards the trees again, superstition warning him don't do it. Words had power, and saying them at night, this close to the forest, that was dangerous. But something urged him on, desperation? "I wish The Goblin King would come and take me away. Right now."

The wind began to blow the opposite direction from before, wild and whipped into a temporary frenzy as the grass bent this way and that, pulling at Lysander's clothes. There were.... giggles... coming from the grass. And the trees. And the bushes. Yet, when Lysander would cast his eyes around, there was nothing there. There was the heavy flapping sound of a decently large bird; a raven cawed roughly before it landed in the grass, fluttering as it straightened up... and up... and up. Standing where the raven once was, was a creature of exotic, yet still entrancing looks. "Hello, Lysander." The creature - being - purred. He wore garments that looked like the night sky, sparkling, silken and dark, the blousey poet's shirt baring his chest and collarbone, displaying a talisman hanging from his neck. His pants were skin tight, and draped over that was a fine, well-tailored jacket that gave the creature the appearance of being draped with wings. Or perhaps it was wings masquerading as a jacket?

Lysander knew immediately that he'd made a very bad mistake. He circles around, following the sounds of laughter and the wind, making the sign of the cross against his chest as the bird comes into view. The book is clutched to his chest like a shield as his green eyes widen, taking in the growing form before him. Tan skin pales as he stumbles back and then falls. He's left sitting, stunned on the ground, still clutching his book, and looking up, up, up at the imposing man in front of him. He's not too frightened to be struck by The Goblin King's beauty, in fact it just lends itself to his stunned silence, before he realises he'd been spoken to. "H-hello," he answers, meekly, and only because he has to. You do not insult the fae. Not that he'd ever met one before, but he'd heard enough.

Davren gently extends a hand down to help the boy up, a smirk of mischief on his lips and a strange, fascinating promise in his eyes. "I've come to take you away. Come come~ The night is yet young." The giggling and rustling continues behind Lysander, a little closer now. Neither the sign of the cross nor the book seem much of a ward against the being.

Lysander's hand reaches out to take Davren's, but then he stops, pulls back. "You- you're really him, then? The Goblin King?" His shoulders rise at the giggling around him, making it all the more apparent that his shirt is several sizes to big as the collar slips over one shoulder. He's quietly cursing himself, because this was very bad, very very bad. He shouldn't have been so frivolous with his words, he'd been told to always be aware of Who may be listening.

Davren cocked his head to the side, the bird-like qualities of his features standing out all the more with the move, "Were you, perhaps, expecting someone else? What's said is said, Lysander. Now," He rolled his wrist in invitation to place his hand into Davren's own. "We really must be going."

Lysander hadn't been expecting anyone, but he wasn't going to say that. He manages to tear his eyes away from Davren's looking back towards the village. "But I... where are we going?" Why did he care? Who would miss him? If Davren had been watching Lysander for any time at all he'd know the young man didn't have any friends, was an outcast. Lysander doesn't keep his eyes off Davren for long, looking back to his face and then to his hand, like it's a snake that may bite him.

"You know very well where we are going, and my patience is running thin." Davren's voice gained a slight edge of warning, his eyes narrowing. "Do not defy me, Lysander." His hand curled back to him, a twitch prompting a crystal to appear there. The rustling shuffled closer, and the giggling stopped, leaving an awful watchfulness creeping up Lysander's back.

A spine tingling chill went over Lysander at Davren's tone, and the eyes at his back. He pushes himself up, still clutching his book like a lifeline. "It's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do for me, it's just that..." Just that what? He stops talking, looking to the crystal ball with wariness.

"It's just...?" Davren mocks, the crystal weaving and dancing along his arm, back and forth between his hands... hypnotic almost. "What's said, is said." He reminded the young man, taking a step forward into his space.

Lysander, amazingly, manages to hold his ground as Davren moves closer, even as every instinct is screaming at him to back away. His gaze follows along with the crystal before he looks up to meet Davren's intimidating eyes. "Let's be going, then." Foolish bravery, really. He agrees to go, partially to get the fae away from the town. Who knows what would happen if they were seen- maybe they'd already been. And it was clear to Lysander that there was no going back on this, and so it would be better to face whatever happened now head on.

Davren- the King - grins again, showing canines that are just a bit too long and teeth a bit too white to be human. "Hold tight." He says, before he shoves the crystal at Lysander's forehead. The sensation is like that of a bubble of water, or an egg cracking across his forehead. He'd feel an overwhelming urge to succumb to slumber, possibly even collapsing where he stood yet feeling oddly weightless.

In an instant, neither he, the rustling and giggles, the King, nor even the wind, are in the field.

[bonewitchery]

★*ﾟ‘ﾟ･ Jim Henson’s The Storyteller Sentence Meme (part one) ･*ﾟ‘ﾟ ★

“When people told themselves their past with stories, explained their present with stories, foretold the future with stories...the best place by the fire was kept for...The Storyteller.”

Change pronouns/phrasing/tense/etc as needed!

Hans My Hedgehog

"Ah, a story. Imagine...a cold night and a dark night, a night like this one.”

“Now, to say you wouldn’t care when you want something is a dangerous thing.”

“We’re a laughing stock.”

“What would your mother say? Her who dotes on you.”

“I’ve thought until I thought a hole in the grass.”

“And his mother felt a crack in her heart like a tiny pencil line and each day after the pencil line got thicker and thicker and one day not long after, her heart split in half.”

“It was a bitter sound and a sweet sound all at once, which began like hello and ended like goodbye.”

“I’m very lost and I’m very hungry.”

“I want you to love me.”

“Good, good, good, good! A wedding! I might even be asked to tell a story or two!”

“It’s days like these that artists come into their own.”

“Which would you have for a husband? The man or the creature?”

“Loyal love will break the spell.”

“We all know about promises and secrets. What use are they when no one knows about them?”

“He is enchanted, you see.”

“To the health of that most beautiful woman who could not keep her promise for one more day!”

“For a gift, she gave me a shoe worn to nothing. And...here it is!”

Sapsorrow

“Beginning as I do at the beginning and starting as I must at the start...let me show you fate through the round of this ring.”

“He can’t do that!”

“He’s too old to be getting married, he ought to be dying shortly.”

“What? What is she wittering on about?”

“What was all the hue and cry?”

“T’is the law of the land.”

“You must marry her.”

“Do as she bids.”

“She never appears. Only her creatures, flying in, slithering out, busy, busy, scurrying about.

“A strange thing of fur and feathers.”

“And one day, this princess meets a prince.”

“What’s that look?”

“It’s a look. If there was a tax on looking, we’d all be beggars.”

“They call me the Straggletag.”

“I’m sorry. Do I disgust you?”

“Look, cats chase mice. Hens lay eggs.”

“I live where hens chase mice and cats lay eggs!”

“You see, when I think about him it makes my head hurt and my tummy ache and my skin tingle and my heart do little somersaults.” 

The True Bride

“Trust me. Sleep.”

"What a sight! What a wonder!”

“Was that a smile?”

“I don’t like smiles.”

“Shh, lie down.”

“You’re tired, my little one. Why not rest a while?”

“How have you done this?!”

“Poor ______. No mother, nor father. He was my other.”

“And gradually smiles turn to words and words turn to whispers and whispers turn to kisses. It’s love.”

“You are my true bride.”

“Let no one else ever kiss your cheek.”

“Now, you must go.”

“She collects handsome men like ornaments! ‘My orna-men’, she calls them.”

“The bargain is struck.”

“Then you must keep what is yours and me what is mine!”

“Yes, they’ve heard the clink of gold.”

“Don’t cry.”

“No, not there. I promised, you see. Never my cheek.”

[suga-babby]

Desire Pt.8 (p.jimin)

Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.4 Pt.5 Pt.6 Pt.7

Word Count:1532

Summary: Amber has liked Jimin for sometime now. But unfortunately he is dating her best friend. When things start to unfold before her eyes, her life is changed. But is it for the good or the bad?

It was the middle of the night, and I laid awake thinking of what occurred tonight. I covered my face due to secondhand embarrassment. The look of Caroline's face was imprinted in my mind and I couldn't eradicate it as much as I tried. I quietly got out of bed, and grabbed my converse. I tiptoed past the stair railing, being extra careful not to wake up Eliza, who was snoring on the other side of the loft.

The metal stairs clanked loudly with each step I took. I walked over to the waterfront and sat down. I stripped my socks off and stuck my feet into the water.

The cool air was nice, and the weather wasn't to bad. I closed my eyes and all I could hear was the sound of the woods. My eyes shot open when I heard footsteps approaching.

I turned to see Jimin walking towards me. I thought Eliza had realized I was gone, but instead I was met by the black haired boy.

"Couldn't sleep either?" He laughed lightly as he sat down next to me. "No not really..." I said quietly. I couldn't help but feel sorry, not only for ruining his relationship, but for ruining this trip.

The sound of silence was overwhelming, becoming too loud to bare.

"So what's keeping you up?" He said, gently nudging my shoulder with his.

"You know I just wanted to say I'm sorry." I sighed as I took my feet out of the icy water. The cool air causing me to shiver a little bit.

I could hear him smile, I turned my attention to him and he shook his head. "Amber there's no need for you to apologize. I already knew." He picked up a twig and started breaking it into pieces.

I let out an exasperated sigh, "You knew? What do you mean you knew? You stayed with her after she's been cheating on you for a year?" I didn't mean to sound so harsh, I sighed again and brought my knees into my chest.

"No Amber. I just found out. I found out on the night of your birthday, that's why I went over."

His words hit me hard, I knew that he was only trying to get back at Caroline.

"Plus I had a hunch, I thought Chris was Eliza's boyfriend. It was the way she kept looking over at the door. I had no idea it was him that Caroline cheated on me with." He noted.

"I see." I got up and started walking back to the cabin. I didn't really want to talk anymore. I could hear his shoes jogging in the gravel. "What are you doing?" He said grabbing my shoulder. I ripped it out of his grasp. "Don't touch me dude. I'm not some freaking rebound." I turned to face him, I couldn't help the tears that filled my eyes. "What are you trying to do?" I threw my hands up and looked at him.

"It's not like that! That has never crossed my mind! I never saw you as a rebound or just a way to get a rise out of Caroline!" He yelled. "That's why I didn't kiss you that night. Because I knew if I did you'd feel that way. You are so special to me and it'd kill me to have you think that way."

He walked closer to me, I turned to the cabin to see if Eliza was awake. "When you kissed my shoulder, I knew about Caroline. So I was confused because I didn't know what to think. Then when you came over I was excited because I was finally getting what I wanted." I laughed sarcastically.

"Getting what you wanted? Amber what are you talking about?" He looked at me with a confused face.

"Jimin, I have liked you since middle school. I have liked you since the first night I saw you. But I knew she liked you more, so here we are." I dragged my foot against the gravel beneath me, and focused my attention on that rather than Jimin's harsh gaze.

"You did not. In ninth grade I wanted to ask you to the homecoming dance. So when I told Caroline she laughed and said that you would've said no so I just didn't go." He laughed his laugh.

"Oh my gosh. Are you serious? I would've said yes in a heartbeat. Your girl was head over heels and super awkward. I wouldn't have passed up a date." I laughed and pushed his shoulder.

We laughed together. Jimin put his arms out and motioned me to come closer. I obliged and became enveloped in his embrace. I put my face in his neck and stayed there for awhile. I looked up at him and we made eye contact. He leaned forward and closed his eyes. I leaned back and put a finger on his lips. His eyes shot open and he let go of me. "That's for the other night." I laughed running away from him and back to the cabin. He laughed and ran after me.

I opened the door to the cabin, stepping inside. He followed after me, shutting the door behind him.

The cabin was dark, yet I could make out his figure in the room. "Goodnight Jimin." I said heading up the stairs.

I felt him grip my wrist once more, only this time I didn't tear away from him.

I glanced at him, seeing his eyes fixated on me. I bit my lip anxiously.

"I meant what I said Amber. Every word." He said gently, caressing my wrist a bit.

I gave him a reassuring smile. He let go of my wrist, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

I walked up the stairs. I felt him staring.

Don't look back.

Don't.

Look.

Back.

I defied the voices inside me and turned around.

He was gone and I was met with the darkness of the cabin.

The sun pried its way through the blinds, waking me up.

I sat up, and rubbed my eyes. I couldn't help but think that Caroline would come running in here. She was always the one to wake me up whenever I slept in.

I looked over at the bedside clock, and saw that it was 10:46 a.m. I quickly placed my feet on the floor, and grabbed my shoes.

I slipped them on and ran down stairs. I was about to go outside, until I saw Eliza in the kitchen.

"What are you in a rush for girl?" She laughed.

"I thought you were-" I began.

"Outside?" She paused. "Hell no. At least not without breakfast. I'm making yours right now." She spoke without turning her back. Eliza was flipping pancakes, and had some bacon on the side.

I took a seat at the table, and drummed my fingers on the wooden surface.

Eliza came bearing the plates of food, and set one in front of me.

"You seem a little on edge, you alright?" She noted, noticing my demeanor right away.

"I'm fine." I said, quickly shoving some pancake in my mouth.

"Amber. What's up?" She said in a serious tone.

"Besides, I heard you leave the cabin last night." She said taking a bite of her bacon. "Now tell me, what happened?"

I looked around, not wanting Jimin to hear me.

"If you're looking for Jimin, he's not here. He went on a run." She informed me.

"So how much time do I have?" I told her.

"He left about uh- 20 minutes ago... so I'd say 30 minutes tops." She guesstimated.

With Jimin gone, I quickly told Eliza everything. From him knowing about Caroline, to me telling him how I genuinely felt about him.

"So you're telling me that you confessed to Jimin, and I missed it?" She said pouting playfully.

"That's what you get for falling asleep." I said laughing at her.

"Maybe if you guys didn't put on The Dark Crystal I would have stayed awake." She fired back.

"Well maybe if you appreciated Jim Henson's work, you would have stayed awake!" I retaliated.

"Whatever." She put on her sunglasses and slipped on her flip flops. "I'm heading to the waterfront, wanna come with?" She smiled.

"Yeah! Just let me change my top!" I went upstairs, feeling a tinge of déjà vu.

I sorted through my luggage, and I heard the front door open. "Eliza you could at least wait for me!" I ran to the stair well, my expression instantly changed seeing Jimin looking up at me.

"Hi Amber." He waved at me.

"Hey!" I said coming down the stairs.

"I'll load up the bags and go meet you guys." He smiled and grabbed the bag from my hand.

"Who said you're invited?" Eliza said playfully sticking her tongue out at him.

He laughed and dangled the keys in front of her. " Fine, I know who will be walking home right Amber?"

We all laughed and grabbed all the bags and dipped our feet in the water. I guess we wanted to stay there in that moment. Jimin and I knew that things were going to change drastically once we got back.

[swan1974-blog]

Sam Says,Can I Tell You A Fun Fact? Swans Only Have One Partner For Their Whole Life, If Their Partners Die They Could Die From A Broken Heart. It's Like I Was Reading About Myself And Not The Species Of Bird. Swans Are Highly Intelligent And Remember Who Has Been Kind To Them, Or Not. Man, What A Compliment! Amazing Swan Facts About A Cob Make Them Distinguishable From Other Birds. A Cob Or A Male Swan Acts Responsibly For His Children And For His Partner. He Protects His Family By Making A Blow Using His Knucklebone. The Blow From His Wing Is Said To Be Strong Enough To Break A Man's Hand. Swan Says,I Wouldn't Want To Take A Punch From Him! Sam Says,That's Interesting, And I Will Want To Add Although It Is True That Swans Are Gentle And Defensive Animals By Nature, They Have Their Rare Moments Of Aggression. If Any Intruder (Such As Another Swan, Geese, Or Even A Human) Gets Too Close To Their Nesting Ground Or Young, They May Chase Them Away. They May Also Bite – Not In The Typical Sense Considering They Have No Teeth, But They Can Still Pinch The Skin Which Can Be Irritable. Can You Bite Like That, Daddy? Swan Says,Heck, Yeah! Sam Says,You Know What? I Would Love Twilight Better If Swan From Phantom Of The Paradise Was Bella's Father, You Know, Adding The Portrait Of Dorian Gray In The Vampires And Werewolves Film. What Do You Think Of That? Swan Says,I Lobe It. Sam Says,Do You Get Teased A Lot? Swan Says While Rolling His Eyes,You Sure Bet I Do. People Call Me A Blonde Austin Powers. I Think That Is Mildly Insulting. People Think I Am Stuck In The 1960'S,1970'S. That Doesn't Stop Me, Though. I Am Continuing To Incorporate Cultural Elements Of The 1960S And 1970S In 2017. I Continue The Dream, So To Speak. I Always Wear Flared Elephant Bells Bellbottoms,Waistcoats Lapels Vests,Colorful Patterned Frilly Shirts,Ascots To Look Out Of 1960'S Counterculture. I Do That Because I Like The Style Compared To The Style Today. I Was Often Accessorised With Bright, Bold Colorful Shirts And High-Heeled Boots. Some May Say I Looked A Little Feminine, But Never Mind That. The Flamboyant Look Was In,And Is Still In For Me. During The Mid-1960S Frills And Cravats Came Back In, Together With Vividly Printed Shirts. I'm Contributing To The Trend Even If I'm The Only One Still Doing It. My Patterned Waistcoats With Lapels Is A Little More Elegant And Dandy. It Also Works A Little Better When Worn On It’s Own Or With The Suit Jacket On. I Don't Think It's A Real Jacket, To Be Honest. It’s More Jacket-Like, I Guess You Could Say. One More Thing, I Promise. Finally, Lapels And Trousers Took On Exaggeratedly Wide Dimensions. I Kinda Of Like That. I Have Been Called A Hippie Nowadays, But I Have Also Been Called A Hippie Then, Too. I Don't Care About Being Called A Hippie. The 60'S Slang I Use Nowadays Are Far Out,Peace Out,Groovy,Outta Sight,Freakin' Out,Flower Child,Make Love Not War,Cop A Feel,Love Bite,Shag,Rave On, Rip-City,Peace And Love. Man, I Wish That Slang Was Used Today! How Cool Would That Be? The Woodstock Festival Was A Three-Day Concert (Which Rolled Into A Fourth Day) That Involved Lots Of Sex, Drugs, And Rock 'N Roll - Plus A Lot Of Mud. Mud Riding Would Be Fun! The Woodstock Music Festival Of 1969 Has Become An Icon Of The 1960S Hippie Counterculture. It Was In August 15-18, 1969. I Went There. I Went With Your Mother Whom Was A Flower Child Hippie Back Then. She Was So Beautiful. When I Was There, We Had So Much Fun Together. The Woodstock Was Just Absolutely Fantastic. That Was Not Even Close To All The Good Stuff You Can Imagine. Granny Takes A Trip Was A Boutique Opened In February 1966 At 488 Kings Road, Chelsea, London. The Shop, Which Was Acquired By Freddie Hornik In 1969, Remained Open Until The Mid-1970S And Has Been Called The "First Psychedelic Boutique In Groovy London Of The 1960S. You Want To Know Something Interesting About It? The Name Of The Boutique Was Giving Away Its Policy – ‘Granny’ Symbolized The Influence Of The Past, And ‘Trip’ , A Colourful World Of Bougeoing Hippie Movement And Its Drug Of Choice – Lsd. I Used To Shop There A Lot Because Lots Of Good Stuff There. You Something Else Fantastic? Granny’s Opened In February 1966 At 488 King’s Road, A Previously Unfashionable Part Of The Road Also Revered To As The World’s End, In London. That's Awesome, Right? They Used To Cut Up Colorful Blouses And Floral Dresses And Turn Them Into Colorful Patterned Shirts Or Tops For Men. I Guess You Can Say That Created The Feminine Look For Me. What Was Great About Granny’s Was That There Were No Boundaries. Anything Went And They Kept On Changing. The Effect Of Granny’s Clothes Was Foppish, Flamboyant And Decadent – A 1960’S Reinvention On Fin-De Siecle Dandyism. They Were Absolutely One Of A Kind. It Was A True Mish-Mash Of Influences - My Garments Had To Be Either Colorful Or Unusual Or Both. What Do You Think? Sam Says,Your Garments Are Colorful And Anything But Boring. Your Sixties Grooviness Is Just Awesome. You're A Blast From The Past. Your Personality Is 1960S Swinging London, With Your Advocacy For Free Love, Your Use Of Obscure Impressions And Your Colorful Clothing Style. You Are So Unique. Swan Says,Why, Thank You. I Am Embodying The Swinging London Mod Culture And Hippie Culture Of The 1960S,1970'S. I Hope You Like It. Sam Says,I Wouldn't Change A Thing About It. Swan Says,I Appreciate That About You. I Always Wear Elephant Bells, Popular In The Mid-To-Late 1967-1970S, Were Similar To Loon Pants Which Was A Variant On Bell-Bottomed Trousers, With An Increased Flare. They Are Great. Elephant Bells Had A Marked Flare Below The Knee, Often Covering My Shoes. Shoes? I Have Shoes! Oh No, Where Are They? Anyway, The Preferred Shoes Were Platform Shoes With Soles At Least 2 Inches (5.1 Cm) Thick And Heels 4 To 5 Inches (10 To 13 Cm) To Keep The Pants' Hems Off The Ground. That Way I Never Dragged My Pants On The Ground. They Were So Popular That They Became A Symbol Of The Outlandish And Colorful Style Of The Decade. Awesome, Right? Sam Says,Yeah, And Is The Shop You Shopped At Then Closed? Hey Where Do You Shop Now. I'm Curious To Know. Swan Jokes,You Know Where I Shop At Now? Forever 21. No Wonder I Always Look Young Despite Being Old, Obviously. Sam Laughed And Says,You Have Quite A Sense Of Humor. Swan Says,I Know Right? Sam Says,Where Do You Like To Shop At For Real? Swan Says,I'm Glad You Asked. I Like Hot Topic The Store Because Of All The Costumes And Accessories. They Fit My Tastes. It's So Gothic And Dark, And Others Don't Seem To Appreciate My Style, Honestly. I Have Been Called A Emo,Goth,Scene Because It's So Dark. You Know What? I Miss The Hippie 60'S. When It Was Cool To Wear The Clothes I Just Can't Stand Not Wearing I Love Them So Much. Sam Says,You Know What? Uncle Paul Was Very Popular In The 1970'S, Which I Know You Already Know. But Did You Also Know, Although Predominantly Known For His Music, Paul Williams Has Also Appeared In Films And Many Television Guest Spots, Such As The Faustian Record Producer Swan In Brian Depalma's Film Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)—A Rock And Roll Adaptation Of The Phantom Of The Opera, Faust And The Picture Of Dorian Gray, For Which Williams Also Wrote The Songs Also You Cowrote The Script With Brian Depalma. And He Was As Virgil, The Genius Orangutan In Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973). On February 9, 1973, Williams Made A Joke Appearance On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson In Which He Sang A Song In Full Make-Up As Virgil. He Also Played Migelito Loveless, Jr. In The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979), A Reunion Movie Featuring The Original Cast Of Wild Wild West Television Series, And Played Himself, Singing A Song To Felix Unger's Daughter Edna, In The Odd Couple Television Series In 1974. After Appearing On The Muppet Show In 1976, Williams Worked Closely With Jim Henson's Henson Productions On The Muppet Movie, Most Specifically On The Soundtrack, And Even Had A Cameo In The Movie As The Piano Player In The Nightclub (Who Had A Sign On The Piano Saying "Don't Shoot Piano Player") Where Kermit The Frog Meets Fozzie Bear. He Was Also The Lyricist For Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. Williams Was Hired By Tv Producers Paul Junger Witt And Tony Thomas To Write Title Tracks For Two Of Their Abc Comedies, It Takes Two (1982–1983), On Which He Also Co-Sang With Crystal Gayle, And Condo (1983), In Which Williams' Theme Was Sung By Drake Frye. Williams Has Appeared In Many Minor Roles. He Provided The Voice Of The Penguin In Batman: The Animated Series. He Appeared On An Episode Of Walker, Texas Ranger As A Radio Dj Covering A Modern-Day Bonnie And Clyde. He Appeared In 2009 In An Episode Of Nickelodeon's Children's Show Yo Gabba Gabba! Entitled "Weather", Where He Performed "Rainbow Connection". He Has Also Appeared On Cartoon Network's Dexter's Laboratory Where He Played Professor Williams In An Episode Entitled "Just An Old Fashioned Lab Song". He Made Numerous Television Appearances In The 1970S And 1980S, Including On Hawaii Five-O, Match Game '79, Hollywood Squares, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island,The Hardy Boys, The Fall Guy, And The Gong Show. In October 1980, Williams Was Host Of The Mickey Mouse Club 25Th Anniversary Special On Nbc-Tv. He Stated That He And You Both Tried Out For The Show In Early 1955 And Were Both Turned Down. He Was A Frequent Guest And Performer On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He Also Appears As The Man Making The Phone Call At The Beginning Of The Music Video For Hank Williams Jr.'S Song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight". And So, So Much More! He Was Very Well Known By Everyone, Including You, Of Course. Everyone Knew Him. Were You Jealous Of Him Getting More Fame Than You Back Then. He Stole Your Spotlight, Huh? Swan Says,Well, Yeah, In A Way He Did. Sometimes The Icarly Fans Say That Paul Williams Created The Show, But I Did. Sam Says,I See How That Would Be Bothersome. Swan Says,Yep. Sam Says,You Have A Creative, Colorful Imagination Like He Does. Swan Says,I Know, I Know. Speaking Of Colorful,And I'm Getting Off Topic Now, Cyclia Was Created By The Muppets Creator Jim Henson And Willy. Willy Wonka, You Know? The Club Was Very Small. Suddenly, It Got A Whole Lot Bigger. It Felt Trippy,Not Knowing If They Were Just Seeing Things. Sam Says,Was It Just Their Imagination? Swan Says,Nope.

[gwynnew]

Frank Oz restores 'Little Shop of Horrors' dark original ending for the Trump era

The monstrous Audrey II wants to make a meal of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. (Credit: Warner Bros.)

The first time Warner Bros. screened Frank Oz’s 1986 film musical Little Shop of Horrors, test audiences ate it up like a bloodthirsty plant devouring a sadistic dentist. They rooted hard for Seymour (Rick Moranis), the nerdy 1960s shop assistant who makes a devil’s bargain with a man-eating plant to win the love of his co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene). Every scene was met with laughter and applause — until the plant devoured Seymour and Audrey, and the audience went silent. After two previews and many livid comment cards, Oz and screenwriter Howard Ashman decided to scrap the original, 23-minute ending — in which the plant eats everyone and takes over the world — in favor of giving Seymour and Audrey their happily-ever-after. Oz has no regrets. “My job is to entertain,” he tells Yahoo Entertainment, and the new ending was “more satisfying to the audience.” However, film fans have long mourned the disappearance of the original ending, which included a heartbreaking reprise of Audrey’s ballad “Somewhere That’s Green” and a fantastic montage of the plant, named Audrey II, rampaging, Godzilla-style, across New York City.

This month, Little Shop of Horrors will be screened for the first time nationwide with its original, darker ending restored. Oz wonders if the film will have a new resonance in the Trump era, when America’s real-life monsters thrive on blood, greed, and the misguided good intentions of countless Seymours. “It will be very interesting to see if, in this new political and cultural climate, if there will be any association with that, with the plant. Let’s just say that,” says Oz. The original ending, he acknowledges, “may still be too dark for people and I accept that. It may not be as satisfying emotionally, and I accept that. But on the other hand, the reason Howard and I wanted it, was that it is the Faustian legend. Seymour does have consequences for his actions. We needed to omit those consequences to keep the audience happy, which I agreed with, by the way. I think we had to do it. But now it will be very interesting to see.”

The plants rampage through the city in Little Shop‘s original ending. (Credit: Warner Bros.)

Little Shop of Horrors is adapted from the 1982 off-Broadway rock musical by Ashman and Alan Menken, itself based on a 1960 Roger Corman B-movie. The show ran for four years in “a crummy little theater on Second Avenue,” as Oz remembers it, and he wanted to bring that claustrophobic downtown atmosphere to the film. “I didn’t want to turn it into a Hello, Dolly! musical. It had to reflect that grunge spirit,” he explains. At the same time, he felt that if he shot a truly realistic, on-location version of the city, the audience wouldn’t go along with the characters bursting into song — which is how Oz felt about a certain other iconic New York film musical.

“As much as I love West Side Story, it’s really bogus, because they’re not going to be dancing on the streets on a rumble in New York,” he says. “As brilliant as the film was, that world didn’t support that action, in my opinion.”

Audrey and Seymour didn’t have a happy ending as initially conceived in the script. (Credit: Warner Bros.)

“Every film is artifice, right?” he continues. “Scorsese is artifice. It’s not real. People aren’t actually getting really killed in Goodfellas. But one has to create, in my opinion, an artifice in which the world the characters inhabit can be believed. And so any actions within that world are believed, because of the tacit arrangement one makes with the audience, which is, ‘OK, I’m creating something, I’m asking you to believe in it, I will be honest to that world if you will continue to believe in that world.’”

To create a “quasi-theatrical world” for his singing characters (including Steve Martin as Audrey’s abusive dentist boyfriend), musical narrators (a Motown-style trio played by Michelle Weeks, Tichina Arnold, and Tisha Campbell-Martin), and talking plant puppet (voiced by Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops), Oz had the entirety of Skid Row constructed on an indoor soundstage (specifically Pinewood Studios’ “007 Stage,” built large to house the James Bond films). His preferred set-design process is unorthodox. “What people usually do is say, ‘Ok, build me a set and I’ll work around it.’ And I do the reverse,” Oz explains. A year before shooting began, Oz brought production designer Roy Walker to the empty soundstage, where they played songs from the Little Shop cast album and mapped out the set on the floor with tape.

Steve Martin as Little Shop‘s deranged dentist (Credit: Warner Bros.)

“I’d play the ‘Dentist!’ music from the off-Broadway show, and I’d say to Roy, ‘OK, here’s where the motorcycle stops, and Steve gets out,’ and then with that music, I would count how many steps it would take for Steve to get from the sidewalk to the front door,” Oz explains. “And so he would tape that. And then I would go with the music and guesstimate how many steps it would take to get inside his office, and then Roy would create the wall there…  And then when he created the set I knew musically how much time and how many beats it would take to get from one to the other.”

Once filming actually began, Oz says, “Every freaking day was a challenge.” That’s largely because one of his lead characters was a 13-foot-high puppet. Though Oz came on board with unimpeachable puppet credentials — he created many of Jim Henson’s iconic Muppet characters, and directed both The Dark Crystal (with Henson) and The Muppets Take Manhattan —  the plant Audrey II presented a daunting task for a director. At minimum, according to designer Lyle Conway, four puppeteers were needed to perform the character; for the climactic number “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space,” 51 puppeteers were required.  “If I wanted to move that plant from one part of the store to another,” says Oz, “it took two days.”

That Mean, Green Mother From Outer Space (Credit: Warner Bros.)

While Oz is proud of the film’s creative camerawork — the jaw-dropping growth of the plant, the verse in “Dentist!” shot from inside the patient’s mouth, the swooping crane shot at the end of “Somewhere That’s Green” that he’s quick to credit to Ashman — his favorite moment in the film is one of the simplest and most touching. “It’s not about shots for me as much as emotion. And I think my favorite song really is ‘Suddenly Seymour,‘ because the song is so stunningly full and beautiful that Howard wrote,” says Oz. “These two damaged, sad souls, connecting at that moment, that’s what’s most memorable to me.”

Little Shop of Horrors remains popular enough that the possibility of a remake has floated around for years. “There are a couple movies of mine that have already been remade, which is weird because they usually let the director die first,” Oz quips. “There’s been talk about Little Shop for a long time. I know nothing about it. But I think it’s wonderful. I mean, put it this way: I think it’s wonderful if it’s good.”

Audrey II’s pods provide backup singing… and chomping. (Credit: Warner Bros.)

As for Oz — whose post-Little Shop films include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob?, In and Out, and Death at a Funeral, among others — he hasn’t directed a feature film in a decade. “It’s not that I’m off, it’s just that things have changed,” he explains. “Sometimes I have worked on scripts that I liked and they couldn’t get the money for them. And the scripts that I am given are often scripts that I just don’t want to do. And I’d rather not work than do something I don’t believe in.” (He did recently direct an independent documentary about the creation of The Muppet Show called Muppet Guys Talking, which will receive a digital release in March.)

If there’s a thread that runs through all of Oz’s films, and Little Shop of Horrors in particular, it’s humor untarnished by cynicism. “I just do what I do and the human being I am comes out through it. I don’t think optimism is really something I identify with as much as purity and innocence,” says Oz. “I believe in my heart, without being a goody two shoes, that there are people in the world who are really good, and unfortunately it’s the people in power who are often not. And the people who are not in power, are the ones I’m making it for.”

‘Little Shop of Horrors: The Director’s Cut’ will play in theaters nationwide on Oct 29 and 31. For tickets, visit Fathom Events.

Watch the trailer for Little Shop of Horror: The Director’s Cut:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Beauty and the Beast’ Lyricist Howard Ashman’s Loved Ones Recall How He Brought Story to Life — and Changed Disney Films Forever

‘Labyrinth’ Turns 30: Brian Henson Shares Memories of David Bowie, Jim Henson, and the Grouchy Goblin Hoggle

The ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ Puppet Master Who Brought the Blood-Thirsty Plant to Life

[krakowergroup]

PR: Julie's Greenroom

VARÈSE SARABANDE RECORDS TO RELEASE JULIE’S GREENROOM - ORIGINAL NETFLIX SERIES SOUNDTRACK With Original Songs Performed by Julie Andrews, David Hyde Pierce, Tituss Burgess, Ellie Kemper, Carol Burnett, Alec Baldwin and more! With Original Score Composed By Ryan Shore (April 5, 2017 – Los Angeles, CA) – Varèse Sarabande will release the JULIE’S GREENROOM – Original Netflix Series Soundtrack digitally on April 14 and on CD May 5, 2017.  The soundtrack features songs performed by Broadway and screen legend Julie Andrews as well as wonderful guest stars such as Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Ellie Kemper and Tony® and Emmy® award winning performer Dave Hyde Pierce.  Also included on the soundtrack is the original score composed by Ryan Shore (PRIME, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR). JULIE’S GREENROOM is an all-new arts educational show for the very young starring the legendary Julie Andrews and brought to life by the ingenious minds at The Jim Henson Company. All-new puppet friends - the Greenies - learn all about the arts (dance, singing, performing, painting, and more) from Ms. Julie herself, her assistant Gus (Giullian Yao Gioiello), and talented guest stars (Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, David Hyde Pierce, Ellie Kemper) in each episode. Ryan Shore is an Emmy® Award and Grammy® Award-nominated composer and songwriter for film, television, games, records and theater.  His versatility and effortless ability to collaborate have quickly made him one of today's most sought-after composers. He was named Assistant Music Director and Contributing Composer / Arranger / Orchestrator for the 2015 Academy Awards.

TRACKLIST 1. Mash-Up (Theme Song) – Performed by Giullian Yao Gioiello 2. Anything Can Happen In the Theater – Performed by Julie Andrews & Giullian Yao Gioiello 3. Hugo 4. Shakespeare Shakes – Performed by Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Dorien Davies & Tyler Bunch 5. Spike’s Despair 6. Let Your Voice Be Heard – Performed by Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Dorien Davies 7. Cheering Performed 8. When You Act Performed – Performed by Julie Andrews & Alec Baldwin 9. Fizz Breaks Joshua’s Violin 10. Julie & Gus 11. Yes And – Performed by Ellie Kemper, Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Dorien Davies 12. Circus Day 13. You Gotta Bring the Wow – Performed by Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Dorien Davies & Tyler Bunch 14. Sticky Handshake 15. Juggling & Handstands 16. Cirque du Soleil 17. Snap It – Performed by Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Dorien Davies 18. Runaway Cart 19. Costume Workshop 20. Someone Else’s Shoes – Performed by Tituss Burgess, Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D’Abruzzo & Dorien Davies 21. A Scarftacular Day 22. Wheelchair Steed 23. Circle Up Greenies 24. Take A Leap Performed – Performed by David Hyde Pierce, Julie Andrews, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D’Abruzzo & Dorien Davies 25. Mash-Up The Musical 26. Anything Can Happen in the Theater (Part 2) – Performed by Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Giullian Yao Gioiello, John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Dorien Davies & Tyler Bunch 27. Mash-Up (Reprise Finale) – Performed by John Tartaglia, Jennifer Barnhart, Frankie Cordero, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Dorien Davies & Tyler Bunch JULIE’S GREENROOM is a Netflix Original produced by The Jim Henson Company and is executive produced by Julie Andrews, Emma Walton Hamilton and Steve Sauer, and Lisa Henson and Halle Stanford for The Jim Henson Company. Emmy Award® winning actor and writer Joey Mazzarino is co-producer and director, Tom Keniston is producer, and Emmy Award® winner Bill Sherman is the series composer. The thirteen 30-minute episodes premiered globally on Netflix on March 17, 2017 # # # www.varesesarabande.com For more information contact KrakowerGroup[at]gmail.com, or @KrakowerGroup on Twitter ABOUT VARÈSE SARABANDE RECORDS Founded in 1978, Varèse Sarabande is the most prolific producer of film music in the world, releasing the highest quality soundtracks from the world’s greatest composers. From current box office hits and top television series to the classics of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Varèse Sarabande’s catalog includes albums from practically every composer in every era, covering all of film history; from Bernard Herrmann, Alex North and Jerry Goldsmith to Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, and Brian Tyler. Varèse Sarabande releases deluxe and expanded editions of special soundtracks for the film music aficionado. The Varèse Vintage imprint specializes in releasing new and re-issued albums by classic pop, jazz and country artists. Varèse Sarabande Records is distributed by Universal Music Group. Follow:  twitter.com/varesesarabande Watch:  youtube.com/varesesarabande Listen:  open.spotify.com/user/varesesarabanderecords Like:  facebook.com/varesesarabanderecords Buy:  varesesarabande.com ABOUT THE JIM HENSON COMPANY The Jim Henson Company has remained an established leader in family entertainment for over 60 years and is recognized worldwide as an innovator in puppetry, animatronics and digital animation. Best known as creators of the world famous Muppets, Henson has received over 50 Emmy Awards and nine Grammy Awards. Recent credits include the Emmy®-nominated Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, and Pajanimals, the CG-animated preschool series Doozers, the digital citizenship series for preschoolers Dot., the Netflix series for young preschoolers Word Party, the marine biology themed animated series on PBS KIDS Splash and Bubbles and the Netflix Original preschool show Julie’s Greenroom, starring award-winning actress Julie Andrews. Features include Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, as well as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and MirrorMask. Television productions include Fraggle Rock, the sci-fi cult series Farscape, Henson Alternative’s No, You Shut Up! and the TV film Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow. With additional locations in New York and London, The Jim Henson Company is headquartered in Los Angeles on the historic Charlie Chaplin lot, complete with soundstage and postproduction facilities. The Company is home to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™, a pre-eminent character- building and visual effects group with international film, television, theme park and advertising clients, as well as Henson Recording Studios, one of the music industry’s top recording facilities known for its world-class blend of state-of- the-art and vintage equipment. The Company’s Henson Alternative brand is currently touring Puppet-Up! – Uncensored, a live puppet improvisational show. http://www.henson.com www.facebook.com/hensoncompany www.twitter.com/hensoncompanyhttp://www.henson.com