The Fable Lampoon

Good evening, hello and welcome to Behind the Fairy Tale. Tonight, I
will be delving deep into three well-known, well-loved fairy tales. I
will be going deeper, investigating further and annoying more people
than anybody else in history.
So, join me, as I go 'Behind the Fairy Tale'.

Case No. 1 - Whatever Happened to the 8th Dwarf?

We all know the story. Snow White, who's skin was white as...snow, was
rescued by the seven dwarfs. There was Dopey, Bashful, Happy, Sleepy,
Doc, Grumpy and Sneezy. But before the seven dwarfs became famous, they
were actually known as the eight dwarfs, the missing member being
Intellectual. Intellectual had got into a massive row with the group
after rumours of negligence (he forgot some of the words to Hi Ho.
Dwarfs are very strict with their songs), were spread about within the
Fairy World.
But Intellectual had a contract to see out with the Eight Dwarfs and
they needed to time to find a new drummer anyway.

After a fight broke out between Intellectual and Doc (Intellectual was
against the fact that Doc had the only name that wasn't an adjective) 8
dwarfs quickly became 7 as Intellectual tendered his resignation to the
rest of the group.
Intellectual left under a storm of controversy, as he went to the
papers with allegations of what the other dwarfs were really like.
Dopey ended up in court denying that his name was in any way related to
drug-use. Sleepy had to defend his name over allegations of late-night
clubbing and boozing and Doc was up for plagerism for the catchphrase
of Bugs Bunny, who, incidentally, lived next door to the dwarfs in
Fairy Land.
With Intellectual gone, the group held auditions for a new eigth
member, with limited success. This is a manuscript I have obtained from
the notes of Grumpy at these proceedings.

First Candidate Name: Snotty

Advantages: His name gave us a Good Laugh.

Disadvantages: Has all the singing skills of a dead mongoose. Which
aren't goode.

Second Candidate: Lazy

Advantages: His bellye was just aboute the righte size.

Disavdantages: Wouldn't get us a cuppa. Lazy toad.

Third Candidate: Foolhardy

Advantages: He told us jokes.

Disadvantages: He told us jokes.

Fourth Candidate: Ancient

Advantages: Could reallye sing.

Disadvantages: Think he might crumble if I touch him.

And so the list goes on. After days of auditions, the group decided
that no-one could fit the bill, and they decided simply to be known as
the seven dwarfs and their manager was happy, if only because he got to
pay them less money.
So time went by and they recorded their first song, which was to be 'Hi
Ho, Hi Ho'. Gold digging was a personal fave pastime for the boys and
so this song seemed suitable for their first record, as opposed to 'I
Love Digging in the Go-ld', 'Everyday I Dig for Gold' and the classic
'Love me Golden.'
But what, I hear you cry desperately, has happened to Intellectual?
Well, after various failed attempts at a solo career (his album 'I'm an
Intellectual' failed to sell one copy. The promoters decided that it
must have been down to a poor title and that it belittled everyone. Or,
they said, it might have been the terrible singing.), Intellectual set
up his own Fish and Chip shop in Grimsby, after leaving Fairy Land for
good. I recently interviewed him over a vat of steaming fat.

Do you feel in any way bitter towards the dwarfs?

Bitter? I don't feel bitter - why would I feel bitter? Why? I'm glad
I'm not with them. D'you see that film? All gems and princesses? Cor,
I'm glad I got out while I did.

So you prefer working in a Fish and Chip shop?

I certainly do - great times for Fish and Chip shops at the moment.
Roaring trade, we're doing. Roaring.

Was there one particular moment when you knew it was over with the
group?

Yes, there was. I knew when I handed in my resignation that it was all
over.

Right. Anything before that?

Erm...Well, I suppose the time when I first thought about tending my
resignation.

Ok. But you're not bitter?

No, I am not. The idiots - with their 'Hi Ho, Hi Ho. It's Off to Work
We Go'! Never done a blinkin' days work in their lives the stinking
rats!

No bitterness, then?

None.

As the 7 dwarfs rose in stature (not lengthways, of course), in Fairy
Land, they were quickly snapped up by a film company looking for seven
odd little men with which to tell a tale of romance, adventure and
heroism. After a brief 'Who, us?' moment, the seven were signed up and
production began in earnest. To this day, the group has amassed over
3.4 billion dollars and they live in the biggest mansion in all of
Fairy Land (there is some rivalry between them and the occupant of the
second biggest mansion in all of Fairy Land, who was Elmer Fudd. If you
listen carefully, you can still hear him shouting 'You Wascally
Dwarves!'
Each of the dwarfs owns their own room, each the size of a house and
they all reflect the dwarfs individuality. I spoke with Doc about
this.

I see individuality is very important in your house.

Yes, it is. Individuality is very important, man. It's like, the whole
universe, all cosmically bound by everyone's personal individuality.
It's cool, man.

Right. Cool.

Yeah, it's far out, man.

Far out. Right.

Are you just gonna repeat everything I say, dude? 'Cos that is not
cool.

So, there you have it. The full story of why the eight dwarfs
eventually became the seven that we know and love today. Twenty years
from now, when each dwarf has spent all his money and jealousy has
become rife in the group, they will go their seperate ways.

Sleepy will become a resident of the Old Folks Home.

Dopey will become the Head of Microsoft.

Grumpy will Sit Around all Day in his Underwear Making Snide Remarks
about 'TV Today'.

Doc will become Bugs Bunny's sidekick in a radical new format of the
old favourite cartoon.

Sneezy will become the head of BlessYou Tissues.

Bashful will change his name to Arrogant and become a rock and roll
star.

Happy will become a presenter of Daytime television and will recieve
awards for his permanent state of Smiling.

And Intellectual will give up his job working in the Fish and Chip
trade and he will sign a new deal with his old film company and begin a
epic career full of dazzling lights and bucketloads of cash.
Ain't life a surprising barrel o' fun...

Case No. 2 - Winnie the Pooh and his Honey Addiction

Vices. We all have them. Biting our nails. Cracking our joints.
Watching QVC. But for
most of us, these are just bad habits (except for some who have them on
the side of their
workbenches). But for others, these can be obsessive, life-controlling
neccessities.
Imagine the scene - it is the hottest day of the summer. Inside a large
room is a queue a
mile long (metaphorically speaking, of course) of bears waiting to be
auditioned for the
lead in a new film. There are big bears, small bears and a man who has
just woken up
from a night on the town who is wondering where he is and is at the
moment trying to
sneak out the back door.
One by one, these bears approach a small desk at the front of the room,
behind which sits
an old man. He has glasses so close to the edge of his nose that they
defy gravity to
remain in place. He also wears a toupee like it's a mere
suggestion.
" NEXT!" he shouts. This man, like most auditioners, get a bad
reputation for only being
able to say the word 'Next'. This is untrue. They can also say 'Where's
that cup of coffee?'
at an acceptable level.
A small bear waddles up to the desk (all bears waddle. If they could
walk normally, then
Goldilocks would be strung up by her feet with her head dunked in a vat
of porridge).
" Read this line," says Farrowby, the auditioner, throwing the small
bear a sheet of paper.
When the bear eventually speaks, he sounds like Droopy Dog on
anti-depressants that
have been described by a Mr. A Quack.
" I'm just a poor little rain cloud," he reads, with all the enthusiasm
of an excited tortoise.
" Is that it?" demands Farrowby.
" That's all it says," drones the bear, pointing at the paper.
" I know that's all it says! I wrote that line! I mean - can't you do
it with a bit
more...oomph?" The bear considers this.
" I'm just a po-or little...rain cloud."
" I'm sorry," said Farrowby, " But a hyphen does not equal oomph.
NEXT!"
The next bear approaches the desk wearing a top hat and a
monocle.
" I'm here to read for the part of Master Winnie Pooh Esquire," he
said.
" Fine," sighed Farrowby, giving him the line.
" I'm just a poor little rain cloud, don't you-know. I sit here all day
by myself, watching
the world go by-"
" What do you think you're doing?" asked Farrowby.
" Reading the line, old chap."
" Reading the line? What was all that other stuff?"
" Well, I thought the line needed a little...spice."
" Spice? That's the best line I've ever written, that is! NEXT!"
shouted Farrowby.
" What? How dare you?" cries the bear who Farrowby expects is called
Charles with a
capital C. " I've have spent months performing at the West-End!"
" NEXT!"
When the next applicant had arrived in front of him, Farrowby looked up
to see that
applicant had now become applicants.
" Excuse me," he said. " But I'm only auditioning one bear at a
time."
" But we're a family, you see," said Daddy Bear.
" Ri-ght. But you're still going to have to wait your turn
individually."
" But we're a family," repeated Mummy Bear. There was a long
pause.
" Yes, I've grasped that concept," said Darrowby, removing his glasses.
" But you two are
a bit big for Pooh bear, I'm afraid."
" We can't leave Baby Bear by himself," said Daddy Bear.
" And besides," continued Mummy Bear, " We need work too. After the
goldilocks deal,
we've been tossed aside. No-one wants a whole family any more, you see.
And after I saw
this advertisment in the paper, I knew the part of Winnie was just
right."
" Oh, you were in Goldilocks, you should have said - NEXT!"
" What? But what about us? What do we do?" shouted Daddy Bear as he was
politely
removed from the premises. " I'll get you!"
" Oh, I'm scared. I'll just put me golden wig on and that should send
you packing," said
Darrowby. " Don't worry," he called after them. " I'm sure they'll make
a sequel. NEXT!"
The next bear looked to Farrowby like just the right bear for the job.
He was small, had a
little cute face and most importantly, he could read, which ranked him
higher than most
applicants that day.
" And you're name is?" asked Farrowby, after the bear had read the line
perfectly.
" Ted."
" And why would you like to be in the film?"
" S' paid, ain't it?" asked Ted worriedly.
" Yes, yes. But why would you want to be in this film as opposed to
another film that
pays."
" Depends," said Ted. " How much are these other films offerin'?"
Farrowby looked the bear up and down. He was perfect. A little
elocution lesson would
put him on the right tracks and then he'd be perfect.
" What's the...stuff on your chin?" Farrowby asked, pointing.
" S' honey."
" Right."
" I leaves it there for later."
" And the toast?" asked Farrowby, seeing the stale slice poitning out
of Ted's pocket.
" S' for eating wi' toast, of course."
" Of course," said Farrowby. " I'd like to see you for the last round
of auditioning. If you'd
just like to wait through those doors over there?"
" There any honey through there?" asked Ted.
" I...suppose so. Hollywood is the land of Milk and Honey, after all."
It was so quick. Ted
leapt onto the desk, grabbed Farrowby by the jacket and thrust his face
into the old man's.
" WHERE?" he shouted.
" Where what?" asked Farrowby, his voice quivering like it was in a
blender.
" Where's the milk and honey? Well, not so much the milk - I'm a soya
bear m'self - but
the honey! Where's the honey?"
" I think it's merely a saying-"
" It may be a saying to you mate, but I have a ?10 a week habit to
fund!" Eventually, Ted
was wrestled into the next room by security and the meaning of 'A
Saying' was explained
by a trained teacher.
By the end of the day, Farrowby had auditioned over 1200 applicants and
had sent all but
one away with their tails between their legs (metaphorically, of
course). He'd turned away
grizzly's for whom the words 'Not quite right for the part' seemed to
be an invitation of
war. He'd told polar bears that they were too big, too fierce and well,
too white for the
role.
He'd even had to explain to one individual that if he'd have looked
more carefully at the
spelling of 'Pooh' in the advertisment, then a lot of embarrassment
could have been
spared.
So, 1200 to 1. Time to talk contract with a bear for whom the term of
endearment 'Honey'
was taken in the sense of an offer. Farrowby liked doing business with
bears. They didn't
need 12 dressing rooms, they didn't make demands like 'I'll only do
this gig if I have 53
Black Orchids facing south in my dressing room by midday', and, best of
all, they didn't
whine. They growled occasionally, but that could be dealt with...

Case No. 3 - Why did the Owl and the Pussycat really go to sea?

" I don't like it, I don't like it one bit," said Cat, looking back at
the shore.
" You don't like anything," replied Owl, pulling hard on the
oars.
" That's not true. I like...yoghurt. And...and...certain types of ball
games." Cat sat down glumly
opposite Owl and stared at him. He was good at staring. It was one of
the few things he was good
at. The others, in alphabetical order, are: Eating, Drinking and
Sleeping. One thing he isn't good at
is listing things in alphabetical order.
" Relax, Cat, we're fine," said Owl, his glasses slipping to the end of
his nose as he peered across
his feline companion through the darkness. It isn't known why clever
things like Owl's always wear
glasses. Anybody clever on TV - wearing glasses. You'd think with all
their brainpower that they
could come up with a better way of seeing, wouldn't you?
" No we're flipping well not," said Cat, hugging his chest against the
cold. " They're going to get us,
I'm telling you." He shivered and looked out across the lake. It is a
common belief that cats don't
like water. That is, in fact, untrue, especially with Cat. He'd give
his right arm for a nice glass of
water right now. He'd once given his right arm for the much sought
after 'Cheshire' sticker at school
when he was younger, which had resulted in an embarrassing and
potentially gory scene when his
Mum had come down and demanded that the other child give him his arm
back. Needless to say,
nobody tried to 'twist his arm' very much after that.
" Will you relax? You're giving off guilty pheromones."
" No - that's just because I didn't have a bath this morning," said
Cat. " But I won't relax. You've got
a bag under your seat that has 10 million dollars in it. And unless
you've forgotten we stole that
money from a bank!"
" Where else could we steal it from?"
" Good point. But that doesn't make it any better!" said Cat, standing
again and looking back at
shore, which was now just a speck on the horizon. He could see the
police arriving. They were
getting out boats. Boats!
" Owl! Their gonna get us! They've got boats. Boats!"
" So have we. Now sit down, you're rocking the boat."
" I don't care if I'm rocking the boat, I've got a right to
complain-"
" No - not that kind of rocking the boat. You're literally rocking this
boat!" shouted Owl.
" Sorry," said Cat miserably and he sat back down. " I never agreed to
this you know."
" I know you didn't."
" I didn't want to do it."
" I know."
" I'm totally doing all this against my will."
" And I'm sure the cashier that you held up was very grateful for
that," said Owl, looking quickly
back over his shoulder at the shore. He didn't like what he saw. The
lighthouse was red and white
stripes. Yuck! He hated that! But there was something else that he
didn't like. The police were
about to set off in what Cat would call boats. Boats!
" Nice night for it," he said.
" For robbing a bank?"
" Got to be a nice night for something," said Owl. Cat looked up at the
moon, which seemed to be
laughing at him.
" It's not a nice night anyway. It's cold, damp and that moon is
laughing at us."
" It's not," said Owl re-assuringly. " You're just being
paranoid."
" It is. It's laughing to see such fun as us being chased across the
ocean by the police." There was a
long silence, broken only by Cat and Owl talking. It wasn't very
interesting dialogue, so I thought
I'd save you the bother.
"- and that's my idea for the curing of cancer. What do you think?"
finished Owl and yes, I
apologise. How was I supposed to know he'd change direction so
quickly?
" That's great. You always so wise, aren't you?"
" Suppose so. That's what Owls are good that," said Owl.
" Right. Well if you're so wise, why can't you think of a way out of
this mess rather than sailing
across the ocean in an - admittedly tastefully coloured - pea-green
boat?"
" Cat...for the last time, relax!" Then there was another voice. It was
a very loud voice. It was
coming through a megaphone. The megaphone wasn't talking, you
understand, it just amplified the
voice it's owner. Who happened to be a policeman.
" FREEZE!" it said. Admittedly it wasn't the most dramatic thing, or
even the most sensible thing,
to say to an Owl and a Cat who are high-tailing it across the ocean in
an - admittedly tastefully
coloured - pea-green boat, but he had to say some thing.
" Didn't you hear him?" asked Cat. " He said Freeze! Through a
megaphone. Megaphone!"
" I know. But an intregal part of this robbing the bank plan was that
we wouldn't stop when
someone shouted freeze at us. Remeber?" asked Owl. Cat did remember.
They'd planned this whole
thing in a shady shed over a card-playing table filled with smoke. The
hut was filled with smoke,
not the card-playing table.
Neither of them smoked, but Owl was having it pumped through a hole in
the floor for effect.
" Why do we have to plan in here? I'd much rather plan it at home," Cat
had complained.
" All bank robberies have to be planned in huts with card-playing
tables full of smoke, where the
hut is full of smoke, not the card-playing table."
And so the night had gone on and the whole thing had seemed fine at the
time, but now Cat was sat
shivering in a boat on the ocean with a moon that seemed to chortle and
a policeman with a
megaphone, the whole thing seemed very different.
" No, this money represents a new life for us. It'd ours. We earned
it."
" We stole it."
" Whatever. The point is that this is ours and we're keeping it. Like
it or lump it," said Owl.
" I'll lump it, then," said Cat. He got bored lumping quite soon and
started humming a tune, which
was interrupted by the policeman again.
" I SAID FREEZE!" he said.
" I KNOW!" shouted Cat. " BUT MY PARTNER AND I WOULD RATHER NOT, IF
IT'S ALL
THE SAME WITH YOU. THANKYOU. HAVE A NICE DAY- " Owl yanked him back
down onto
the boat before he said anything stupid, but he feared that the boat
had already sailed on that one.
But the policeman didn't back off and go home and watch the soaps like
Cat hoped he would.
Instead, he ordered all the boats to flank the getaway vehicle, and
pretty soon the Owl and the
Pussycat were surrounded on all sides.
" I think this is it," said Cat.
" Never," whispered Owl, with a steely look of determination in his
eyes.
" What? I missed that on account of us being chased by policeman across
the ocean."
" I said 'Never'."
" Hmm? Never what?" asked Cat.
" Shut up, you've spoiled the effect now." And so Owl increased his
rowing power and headed for
an island he'd been watching get bigger in the distance. Just as a big
policeman was about to jump
aboard the boat, they hit the island outcrop and the Owl and the
Pussycat were sent flying onto the
beach, their bag of money landing on top of them. The police boats,
which had whizzed past the
bizzarely narrow island, circled back round and were about to board the
island when Owl shouted
and held up a wing.
" STOP!" he shouted. " We are officially in another country - you can't
touch us here!" He was
pretty sure about the legal aspect of things, but he was still winging
it a bit. The head policeman
paused for a moment with a look of pain on his face.
" He's right, y'know chief-"
" I know he's right!" the head of the policeman shouted. The other
police went back to their boats.
" Spend your money wisely," he said reluctantly.
" We will!" called Owl as the chief got back onto his ship.
" I won't," said Cat. " I'll probably blow my half on Whiskas, girls
and rock and roll." Owl thumped
him in the side, so he shut up. The police boats sailed off into the
distance and then the Owl and
the Pussycat were alone.
" We made it," said Cat. " We actually made it!"
" Of course we did. I told you we would." They stood up together and
started to walk off into the
place where the sunset would be in approximately 20 hours time.
" D'you think they'll make rhymes about us?" asked Cat. " Legendary,
sort of thing."
" I expect so," said Owl." But they'll probably pretty it all up for
the kids, like."

100 years later a simple rhyme was written. It went 'The Owl and the
Pussycat went to sea in an -
admittedly tasetfully coloured - pea-green boat, to escape from the
feds after they robbed a bank
and got away with 10 million.'
Another 100 years later, the rhyme was changed by a man who had the
crazy idea that he could get
rich quick by selling children books. Idiot. That man went on to become
the head of the biggest
publishing house in the world and he was worth millions. But he was
still an idiot.
And the Owl and Pussycat? Well, let's just say that they lived happily
ever after.

And that brings us to the close of tonights show. I hope you've
enjoyed our look 'Behind the Fairy Tale' and that you'll join me next
time when I'll be delving deeper than ever.
Till then, good night.