Pinky and the Brain in "Crash on The Levee"

[DR. BELCH]

[Fade in on the Warner Brother's lot; a slow pan in on the door to DR. OTTO SCRATCHANSNIFF's office. Background music is a German oompah polka. SCRATCHY's voice is heard speaking for about a sentence before he is seen.]
DR. S: I zee you are right on time for your first zession. Das est gutt. Punctuality is important, ja? Now according to your file, Mr....[pauses, reads clipboard]...Rommel, you believe that za whole vorld is out to get you.
[Pan over to the left to see a caricature of Redd Foxx, dressed as a Nazi officer, playing Gen. IRWIN "THE DESERT FOX" ROMMEL, once one of Hitler's closest men but later accused of betraying the Fuhrer. A snippet of the Sanford and Son theme plays.]
ROMMEL: Yeah, Doc! You see, I was all set to appear in an episode of Histeria called "Great Generals of Europe"...but then the show got cut back from 65 eps to 52 measly shows! [starting to weep] I lost my job, I can't get work noplace, the IRS took everything I got, I just lost my shirt on a bad deal with a haufbrau that burned down, and I got three-ex wives to pay alimony to! I'm broke and desperate! [clutches heart and looks to heaven] Oh, this is the big one! You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm comin' to join ya, honey!
[Zip pan to the office door. QUEEN ELIZABETH I pops her head in. A snippet of "Rue Brittania" plays.]
ELIZABETH: I hear you just fine, Irwin. I'm only right outside the door, after all.
DR. S: Ja, ja. Often these sort of delusions of persecution stem from something earlier. Tell me about your childhood.
[Pan over to the right as an instrumental bit of their theme is heard, where a cage containing PINKY and BRAIN sits on a book-cluttered desk. BRAIN stands at the bars scowling in SCRATCHANSNIFF's direction.
BRAIN: Spare me. The doctor is a well-meaning but unmitigated boob. Everything with him is past trauma, repressed carnal urges, and "how much do you hate your mother"?
PINKY: Well, perhaps...but he does make a wunderbar peach strudel! [giggles inanely and "narf"s]
BRAIN [pauses and ponders]: Well...I'll grant you that. But as a psychiatrist his skills sorely lack. For my money some people are simply whiney babies or jerks...and to rationalize that behavior in a textbook for sixty pages only feeds it. Now on to the matter at hand...tonight's plan. [unfurls tiny windowshade map] This is Mexico.
PINKY: Ja! Wunderbar, mein herr! Achtung! [clicks heels sharply]
BRAIN [grabs PINKY's nose]: This Hogan's Heroes pseudo-German nonsense will stop now...right? [PINKY nods and BRAIN releases his nose, now looking rather mushy.] This is Mexico. In the tiny town of Azucarero grow a species of bean called the Spanish suar bean--scientific name, Frijoles dulcesavor. It is highly prised by gourmets, and, like true champagne is only found in a valley in France and true caviar in a certain lake in Russia, only true sugar beans grow there. If something happened to the crop, they would become more rare and expensive. Herein lies the brilliance of my scheme.
[BRAIN shoves aside a psychology textbook propped against the cage's broken lock and walks out onto the desk. He moves aside a towel spread over a tray of tiny green plants.]
PINKY: Ooh, Brain! Poit! You never told me you had a green thumb!
BRAIN: Well, thank you, Pinky. On a junket to Tijuana, the Acme scientists picked up some sugar been seeds and native soil and brought them back to the States. I incorporated a small number of seeds while they weren't looking.
PINKY: You mean you stole them? For shame, Brian! [scrapes fingers together in a naughty, naughty" gesture]
BRAIN: Semantics aside...here is where the plan falls apart. I need a catastrophic event to kill all the sugar beans in Mexico, and I'm at a loss. Once the crop is wiped out, I will possess the last beans in the world. [stamps foot angrily] But what event is great enough in scope to annihalate the beans? Fire? No. Earthquake? No. Drought? No.
PINKY: Oh, I know, Brain! We get a bi-iii-ii-ig pot and cook up the biggest chili supper in the world to use up all of those Mexican beans! Oh, no, wait, wait. We'll need some crackers the size of garbage can lids to sop up all that lovely sauce! [giggles]
[BRAIN scowls and reaches to pick up the textbook to clock PINKY with, but a noise from outside distracts him.]
DR. S: What est das? [gets up and goes to the door, looks into waiting room. He sees a massive demon stamping around screaming.]
DEMON [in synthesized female voice]: Aauuughhhh! Blast it all to bloody blue blazes! My appointment was at three sharp! It's ten after! If I miss Oprah, there'll be the devil to pay! The rivers will run red with the blood of innocents! [screams viciously]
[A MAN--KATIE KA-BOOM's father--appears and speaks calmly to the DEMON--for it's his lovely daughter pitching one of her hissy-fits. A snippet of her theme, instrumental, plays.]
DAD: Now, now, honey--sweetie--calm down, I set the VCR to tape your show just in case we ran late. In fact, since it's taping, we don't have to rush home; we can stop for ice cream too! Is that all right?
[KATIE instantly calms down and deflates back to her normal pretty proportions.]
KATIE: Oh, thank you, Daddy! You're the top pop in my book! [kisses him on the cheek, KATIE'S MOM and BROTHER, seated behind DAD, sigh with relief]
DR. S [clearly nervous]: Um...young lady, you're next!
[KATIE giggles and walks into SCRATCHY's office. He shuts the door behind them.]
[Pan to the MICE.]
PINKY: Egad! What was that, Brain?
BRAIN: Localized subterranean crustal shift is my guess.
[Pan to SCRATCHY and KATIE. ROMMEL is inexplicably gone; he may have fled in terror out the window earler.]
DR S: Now, Katie, pretend I'm your oldest girly friend und tell me vat za problem is.
KATIE: It's like this, Doc...the littlest things upset me. I can't control my temper. When I get mad, I just blow up.
DR. S: Oh, well, zat es nothing. Ve all get upzet und vant to fuss from time to time.
KATIE: No, I mean, I literally blow up! As in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, big mushroom cloud, Timothy McVeigh-Unabomber-Wile E. Coyote, wreck the house and scare the neighbors kablooie!
DR. S: [uneasy] Oh... ja...like in za waiting room....
KATIE: Bing-O, Doc. If Daddy hadn't calmed me down, this joint would be nothing but a pile of rubble, and I'm not talking Fred Flintstone's little buddy.
[Pan to the MICE.]
BRAIN: She explodes when angered...[hastens to the map, peruses it, grins broadly] That's the key! The levee that reroutes a section of the Rio Grande several miles from the Azucarero valley...blow that and kiss the whole crop of sugar beans adios! Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
PINKY: Whuuh...I think so, Brain, but if he was called 86 and she was 99, what did they number the kids?
BRAIN [growls]: No, peon. If this girl, Katie, were to lose her temper and blow up by the levee, the river would flood the valley and drown the farms. The beans would be wiped out...except for my small cache. The hubris of the refined palates will bankroll my scheme to take over the world!
[Pan to SCRATCHY]
DR. S: I believe za problem stems from your youth, Katie. Perhaps something from ven you werea littee bitty fraulein Tell me, did your mater ever spank you when you vere naughty?
[Pan to the mice.]
BRAIN: I must silence this psychobabbling imbecile. [opens the top of the head of a bust of Freud on the desk and presses a button. A ringing noise sounds from outside the office.]
DR. S: Oh, excuse me. I haff a phone call I need to attend to. [rises and exeunts]
PINKY [gasps]: Ingenious, Brain.
BRAIN: Thank you. A little something I devised to break up the ennui of lengthy psychoanalytic sessions...as well as amuse myself when the good doctor does his conditioning experiments. I have a weakness for watching mindless dogs slaver.
[KATIE is meandering and looking about the office vapidly, finger in mouth, eyes wide.]
BRAIN: Child! Psst! Child! Katie! Yes, you! Come here, please!
[KATIE is puzzled, but she follows BRAIN's voice. She peers into the cage and her voice instantly rises into a high squeal of excitement.]
KATIE [wide eyes sparkling]: Ooh...mice! How utterly adorable! [opens cage door and tickles BRAIN] Cootchie-cootchie!
BRAIN: Please don't do that. It makes me uncomfortable and you look like a moron.
KATIE: Y-You're talking! Holy Russell Crowe, you're talking!
BRAIN: Yes, I am talking. And what I'm talking, dear girl, is a proposition which is mutually beneficial, and won't cost your parents $500 an hour. [grins broadly]
[The P& B theme swells in the background; fade to black.]

[DR. BELCH]

[Fade in on KATIE seated cross-legged on the office floor with BRAIN in the palm of her hand and PINKY on her knee, listening to the diminutive megalomaniac speak. A slow smile spreads across her face.]
KATIE: You really want to take me on a trip to Mexico? And you say it'll be good for my nerves?
BRAIN: Yes! Travel broadens one. And it's better than any pill, potion, or palaver for curing your ills. I guarantee once you spend a few days in that luscious old-fahioned Spanish countryside, you'll return home a new girl.
KATIE: And no more kaboom?
BRAIN [reassuring smile]: No more kaboom.
KATIE: When can we leave?
BRAIN: Tomorrow at seven. Meet me out at the front gate.
KATIE: I'll ask my parents if I can go--but I'm sure they'll say yes!
[she leaps to her feet, dropping BRAIN on his rump as she does so, and runs for the door.]
DR. S [entering, looking confused]: Zere vas no vun on za phone. I belieff zum pranskster is pulling a funny one on me.
KATIE: Oh, Doc! I want to thank you for everything! This appointment was the best thing that I ever did for myself. I'm going to go on vay-cay, get a tan, and above all, stop blowing up over every tiny thing! [singing] La cucaracha, la cucaracha, la la la la la la...[voice fades as she exeunts]
DR. S: But ve hardly...zat is, you weren't on za couch fiv min--aw, schkip it. I must be better zan I thought. [grins and looks proud of self]
BRAIN: Well, I've secured my scheme and fed that bumptuous egghead's ego. All is falling into place.
[PINKY leans against a heavy textbook and causes it to fall on top of BRAIN, squashing him.]
PINKY: Oopsie! Poit! Sorry, Brain.
BRAIN [muffled]: Remind me to murder you later.
PINKY: I'll make a note of it.
[Fade out. Fade in to next scene as KATIE and the MICE load an Acme Labs van at the front gate. Background music for this scene is Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite (recall the music used for the "Eat at Joe's" bear in Tex Avery's "Jerky Turkey") as the bags (a lot of them) are loaded into the rear of the vehicle. KATIE stops, unzips a small duffle, and paws through it, faster and faster until she gets frantic.]
KATIE: Grrr! Where is my waterproof sunblock? I know I packed it last night! I can't go in the sun without it!
BRAIN: Calm down, my dear. I'll buy you another bottle.
KATIE: You can't buy this stuff at a store! I mail-order it special from this company I know! I need it! [starts to lose her temper and get red in the face] Otherwise the UV rays'll give me wrinkles! [turns into a wrinkled old crone; BRAIN and PINKY look terrified] My skin is delicate like a lily! I need my sunblock! Auuggghhhh! [her head spins around like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist, and she speaks in tongues. Exorcist-like music is heard, and a Greek chorus vocalizes, "Rectus dominus...rectus dominus...rectus dominus...lactose!"]
BRAIN [petrified, gulps]: Oh...darn.
PINKY [cheerily]: Found it! [holds bottle aloft] You packed it in the pink duffle, not the black one, silly goose! Narf! [giggles]
[A record scritches and the creepy music ends. KATIE is normal and all smiles.]
KATIE: Thanks, Pinky! [climbs into back of van. BRAIN exhales with relief and mops sweat off his sizable brow.]
[Spin cut to the van, interior. BRAIN drives, using his "Mr. Perkins" contraption from "Opportunity Knox"; PINKY is in the passenger's s eat. The back of KATIE's head is just visible over the top of the seats.]
PINKY: Um...Katie's taller, Brain. Why not let her drive us to Mexico?
BRAIN: For the same reason I don't go jump on a trampoline with a bottle of nitroglycerine in my pocket, Pinky. One tense moment, one bit of road rage, and we wind up two charred smears on our nation's highways.
PINKY: Oooooooh, charred smears! Sounds yummy! [licks lips]
[Cut to a live-action map of the western coastal states. A star drawn in pen represents Burbank, California; a second star represents Azucarero, Mexico. A paper cutout of the van on a stick moves slowly from the first to the second star. Background music is an instrumental of "On the Road Again" .]
BRAIN V.O. What did I tell you about drinking all that diet soda in one sitting, children?
KATIE and PINKY V.O.'s: We'd come to regret it.
[Cut to a background of a desert landscape of cliffs and sky, a sumptuous scene that could be lifted out of a Chuck Jones cartoon. KATIE and the MICE stand with their backs to the camera, looking over it from atop a cliff. Background music is the same piece both Stalling and Stone used for scenes with sunrises and morning establishing shots.]
KATIE [whistles appreciatively]: It's gorgeous. [a closeup of her face, with her eyes starry as an anime heroine's] I could live here the rest of my life in perfect bliss.
[As the MICE scheme, the BG music rapidly switches over to Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King".]
BRAIN: The acoustics of this valley are, by my calculations, optimum to carry the shock waves of Katie's detonation. [points to a green swatch of foliage down in the valley] That is Azucarero... [points to a mound of earth and concrete]...and that is the levee. That [points to a squiggly blue line] is the river. Once Katie goes ka-boom, the levee will break like a cracker and the river will overflow its banks...leaving nary a sugar bean in its wake.
PINKY: Egad, Brain, brilliant! But...no, wait, wait. Won't the poor people of Azoo--Azza--Achoo--that sugar place be wiped out too?
BRAIN: Not if they're smart and climb onto something high when they see the water coming. Now...[points to KATIE] anger her, Pinky!
PINKY: Me? Why me, Brain?
BRAIN: Because I know no one who can frustrate and vex better. Vas, Rosadito! Anger her...now!
[PINKY shrugs resignedly and steps up behind KATIE.]
PINKY: Hey, you there...with the legs! [KATIE turns to look at PINKY, smiling.] Um...your hair...is so...darn blonde!
[KATIE is surprised, then amused. She starts to giggle.]
PINKY: Your mother is...older than you! Your feet...have ten toes each!
[KATIE giggles even harder.]
BRAIN [whispers loudly]: Try harder!
PINKY [perspiring with effort]: Um...all right...here goes...your face...has skin on it, and your eyes are so round and moist!
[KATIE can no longer control herself. She flops on the ground in a laughing fit, her legs and hands thrashing. Unfortunately one of her hands accidentally hits BRAIN and knocks him screaming off the edge of the cliff. He plummets down and bounces off of several protruding ledges. KATIE, who has ceased laughing, and PINKY peer down at their companion worriedly. BRAIN continues his fall, thudding onto a tree branch and sliding through sticker bushes on the cliff slopes, then splashes into the river. The background music is "Way Down Upon the Swanee River", tempo prestissimo. The rapids carry him painfully into several rocks and bash his skull into a low-hanging tree limb before he hurtles shrieking over an immense waterfall. He washes onto the far bank, muddy and drenched and with tattered ears, where in the sky overhead buzzards circle. One decends and pecks BRAIN's forehead hungrily. He sputters and thrashes, startling the bird away with a squawk. He rises unsteadily to his feet.]
BRAIN [dazed voice, glassy eyes, teeth falling out of his mouth]: El elefante es gris y grande! El elepfante es gris y grande! [grunts and faints, falling flat on his face]
[Fade out. Fade in to Acme Labs. Pan into interior. PINKY and KATIE are seated cross-legged on the floor reading teenybopper magazines and eating tortilla chips. The P&B theme plays in the background.]
KATIE: I had a great time today on our road trip, Pinkster. Pity we had to cut it short, what with Brain getting hurt and all.
PINKY. Yeah! [giggles] Zort! He gets hurt a lot, you know. I guess that's the [speaks slowly and precisely, frowning] un-for-seen ram-i-fi-ca-ti-ons of having a dream for taking over the world thingie.
KATIE: Yeah. Goals suck.
[BRAIN enters the room, hobbling on a matchstick crutch. His head is bnadanged, there's a cast on his left foot, and a sling on his right arm. There are lotion-covered cuts and scratches on his face.]
BRAIN [crossly]: Oh, look at this place. It's a sty. Magazines strewn everywhere...chip crumbs ground into the rug...the bathroom a shambles with cosmetics on the sink and water all over the floor. And a proper lady knows how to flush a toilet, you know!
[KATIE is visibly annoyed.]
BRAIN: And there's no toilet paper. Kindly replenish what you use up, child. Not to mention the diet soda cans scattered all over the floor....
PINKY [worriedly]: Uh...Brain...you're being rude to our guest....
BRAIN [continues angrily, ignoring PINKY]: And for the love of all that's good and holy, use a coaster! You've left unsightly rings on our formica tabletops! And don't even get me started on your infantile use of the Bunsen burner....
KATIE: Aackk! You are such a bossy little thing! Don't tell me what to do! You are not my mommy! [The Greek chorus vocalizes again...Rectus dominus! Rectus dominus! Lactose!]
[Cut to exterior of Acme Labs, the roof. A massive explosion blows out the skylight, and the MICE go soaring into the air, then land splat on the sidewalk outside the building. Smoking debris rains down on them. KATIE, calm and all smiles, saunters by.]
KATIE: I had a witchin' time south of the border, Brainy and Pinkster! We oughta do it again next summer! [Exeunts.]
SINGERS V.O.: Her family knows that anytime soon...their little lady Katie goes...[a flaming piece of wood lands a few feet from the mice in cue with the downbeat]...ka-boom!
[The background music segues into an instrumental version of "How Dry I Am" as the MICE struggle to lift their heads.]
BRAIN: Sleep safe in your soil beds, sugar beans...at least until tomorrow night.
PINKY: Why? What are we going to do tomorrow night?
BRAIN [raises finger into the air and winces as an audible crack is heard]: The same thing we do every night, Pinky...try to take over the world!
SINGERS V.O.: They're dinky...they're Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain!
[A cement block with the words THE END carved into it falls with a thud on PINKY and BRAIN. Iris out.]

[don Jaime]

Wow. Very good. Never seen a KKB fanfic before.

NICE JOB!

Do they call him "Rosadito" in Spanish? I'd have thought "Rosito" or maybe "Dedito."

Odd, useless points: "Exeunt" is a plural verb conjugation - it takes one to "exit," two to "exeunt." I thought Champagne was bigger than one river valley, but maybe it's a big river. The Swanee River song is Foster's "The Old Folks At Home." The morning music I think is from Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring," and the ominous chorus parodied is "Carmina Burana."

[Anthonynotes]

Gee, an actual active *use* for Katie Ka-Boom...who knew? I was considering something involving her and a few other now-obscure characters (like Barky Marky from TTA), in a "Seven Soldiers of Victory" sort of thing (now-obscure 40's-era comics characters that, in a now-classic early 70's JLA story, were revealed to have been missing for years until the JLA found 'em, since they were actually *needed* to defeat some now-all-powerful old foe of theirs...). That, or just Barky Marky... :-)

-B.
BABS-DOING-A-FUNNY-SNL-VOICE: Who's Barky Marky?

[Craig Marinaro]

The "morning" song, if it's the one I'm thinking of (the tranquil "daaaa-da-da-da-da-da-daaaa"), is from the "William Tell Overture," believe it or not. Find a full recording of the song...it comes right before the famous part.

[Nftnat]

Belchie, you never cease to amaze me. The Rommel - Sanford - Queen Liz thingie, the incorporating Faust's theme, you even slipped in a H! ref. Is the Perkins suit the same one from Of Mouse & Man? Oh, the morning music might be from Grieg's Peer Gynt; it was also the theme for Watership Down. Brainatra, I'm confused. Are you saying Green Arrow & Speedy were missing from the '40's until the '70's? And Belchie, here's the actual text of the LACTOSE, as near as I can translate it:

Nimbus Cirrus Solar Plexus Lactose
Igneous Metamorphic Sedimentary Lactose
Geldia Bushigi Turizzianagi ? (I never could figure out this line)
Neonto Ontario Gluteus Maximus Lactose
Gingivitis Tungstenitis Cincinnati Lactose
Mandibular Onomatopoeia Lactose Lactose LACTOSE

[Anthonynotes]

>>> Brainatra, I'm confused. Are you saying Green Arrow & Speedy were missing from the '40's until the '70's? <<<

Basically, the Seven Soliders of Victory were a Golden Age superhero team (appearing back in the 40's), of which Green Arrow and Speedy were members. Eventually, their book was cancelled (not matching the JSA's popularity). By the early 70's, it was revealed in a JLA story that the SSoV were tossed through time to various eras back in the late 40's by an old foe of theirs, and that said foe had re-emerged in the then-present to try to take over the world. Thus, the only one who had the experience in knowing how to stop this guy was the SSoV...thus, prompting the JLA (and JSA) to travel back to the various eras the individual members were tossed to (the Old West, Robin Hood's time, etc.). Returning to the present the baddies were defeated....

As for Green Arrow and Speedy: this is where the "Earth-1"/"Earth-2" thing came in...specifically, it was the *Golden Age* (or "Earth-2") Green Arrow/Speedy who were SSoV members and time-tossed (into Earth-2's past, which is where the SSoV lived). "Our" GA/Speedy, the "Earth-1" versions (the guy who teamed up with Green Lantern for all those "relevant" comics stories and whose SPeedy was revealed to be a drug addict and such) was doing just fine. IIRC, the Golden Age GA didn't have the goatee/a slightly different looking uniform....

-B.

[DR. BELCH]

Nftnat:
Is the Perkins suit the same one from Of Mouse & Man?

No...in "Oportunity Knox", Brain wore a mouse-sized suit, glasses, and mustache, and used a system of pulleys attatched to the steering wheel to drive the lab van.

Funny that no one knows the title of the "morning music", even though they recall the tune no problem....

The "rectus dominus" part of the chorus' chant is aref to the South Park ep "Damien", about the devil's son and a boxing match between Jesus and Satan. Literally translated it means "butt master".

DON JAIME--Never really head Pinky's name used in Spanish, since except for A!#75 CN inexplicably never bought any P&B shorts in its syndication package. Rosadito literally translates to "little pink".

BRAINATRA--Katie appeared in three comic book stories, which I haven't read but the reviews say they show some good character development, more than her TV shorts. I tried for that here--Katie is aware she has a problem and seeks psychotherapy for it, although Brain is more interested in exploiting her talent than curing it. So she did have an active use at one point, at least...though the A! comic was mothballed, what, a year and a half ago, so I guess I have managed to breathe life into a minor forgotten character. I suppose there's hope now for the likes of Bosko and Honey, Charlton Chipmunk, Buddy Boar, and, yes, even Barky Marky.