• MiSTed: The Tale of Fatty Raccoon, Chapter XV (1 / 1)

    From Joseph Nebus@21:1/5 to All on Thu Feb 11 19:35:32 2021
    XPost: alt.fan.mst3k, alt.tv.mst3k

    XV

    FATTY VISITS THE SMOKE-HOUSE

    CROW: It's so nice of Fatty to visit the smoke-houses stuck at home like that.


    The winter was fast going.

    MIKE: Until someone grabbed its tail through the hole in the sycamore.

    And one fine day in February Fatty
    Raccoon crept out of his mother's house to enjoy the warm sunshine---

    TOM: February, the Sunshine Month.

    and see what he could find to eat.

    Fatty was much thinner than he had been in the fall.

    CROW: So be with us for next week when we start The Tale Of Thinny Raccoon.

    He had
    spent so much of the time sleeping that he had really eaten very
    little.

    TOM: [ As Fatty ] 'Wouldn't mind eating little if I did it more often.'

    And now he hardly knew himself as he looked at his sides. They
    no longer stuck out as they had once.

    MIKE: You know, the 'sleep-and-pretend-barber-shop' weight plan is the most successful diet plan.


    After nosing about the swamp and the woods all the afternoon
    Fatty decided that there was no use in trying to get a meal there.

    CROW: What if I offered to pay someone Tuesday for a hamburger today?

    The
    ground was covered with snow. And except for rabbit tracks---and a few squirrels'---

    TOM: And a fox.
    CROW: Three deer.
    MIKE: That band of river otters.
    CROW: Those penguins.
    TOM: That team of dressage armadillos.
    MIKE: Four elephants all wearing berets.

    he could find nothing that even suggested food. And
    looking at those tracks only made him hungrier than ever.

    CROW: Man, never go eating on an empty stomach.


    For a few minutes Fatty thought deeply. And then he turned
    about and went straight toward Farmer Green's place.

    TOM: Oh, you can't eat a *place*. Fatty, you want to look for *food*.

    He waited behind
    the fence just beyond Farmer Green's house; and when it began to grow
    dark he crept across the barnyard.

    MIKE: So he got up in the sunlight to wait for nightfall.


    As Fatty passed a small, low building he noticed a delicious
    smell. And he stopped right there.

    CROW: Tell me it's a pie cooling on the windowsill.
    MIKE: 'Tramp raccoon' already snagged that.

    He had gone far enough. The door
    was open a little way.

    TOM: Ah, that's all he needs for probable cause.

    And after one quick look all around---to make
    sure there was nobody to see him---Fatty slipped inside.

    CROW: Bonk!
    MIKE: [ As Fatty ] OW! ... I meant to do that!


    It was almost dark inside Farmer Green's smokehouse---for that
    was what the small, low building was called.

    TOM: Or the smoke-house, if you edit the titles of chapters.

    It was almost dark; but
    Fatty could see just as well as you and I can see in the daytime.

    MIKE: Course, him bringing the flashlight helped.

    There was a long row of hams hung up in a line. Underneath them were
    white ashes, where Farmer Green had built wood fires, to smoke the
    hams.

    CROW: Wait, really? Like, that's how smoking meat works?
    MIKE: [ Shrugs ]

    But the fires were out, now; and Fatty was in no danger of being burned.

    TOM: The passion was gone from the hams.


    The hams were what Fatty Raccoon had smelled. And the hams were
    what Fatty intended to eat.

    MIKE: If he can just get them away from the guy who draws 'Heathcliff'.

    He decided that he would eat them
    all---though of course he could never have done that---at least, not in
    one night; nor in a week, either.

    TOM: Nine days, though? That would do it, if he ate through dinner breaks.

    But when it came to eating, Fatty's
    courage never failed him. He would have tried to eat an elephant, if
    he had had the chance.

    MIKE: Imagining him slurping the elephant's trunk up like a strand of spaghetti.
    CROW: Asking the elephant to rub a little alfredo sauce on him .. .


    Fatty did not stop to look long at that row of hams.

    MIKE: He only wept, for the lack of new worlds to conquer.

    He
    climbed a post that ran up the side of the house and he crept out

    TOM: If he ran out he'd be showing post-haste.

    along the pole from which the hams were hung.

    CROW: Oh, they're hamstrung.


    He stopped at the very first ham he came to.

    MIKE: And asked for directions to town.

    There was no
    sense in going any further.

    TOM: Unless you're being whimsical!

    And Fatty dropped on top of the ham and in
    a twinkling he had torn off a big, delicious mouthful.

    MIKE: [ Low-key ] o/` I wanna hold your ham ... o/`


    Fatty could not eat fast enough. He wished he had two
    mouths

    TOM: And six eyes, not all on his face!

    ---he was so hungry. But he did very well, with only ONE.

    CROW: You know, an expert eater can use only the one mouth and you never notice the difference.

    In no
    time at all he had made a great hole in the ham.

    TOM: Oh, ham and Swiss.

    And he had no idea of stopping.

    MIKE: 'I will not start stopping', he said.

    But he did stop.

    CROW: 'Wait, I started stopping anyway!'

    He stopped very suddenly.

    TOM: Have you tried stopping stopping?
    MIKE: Or starting not-stopping?

    For the first
    thing he knew, something threw him right down upon the floor.

    CROW: Hey, it's the crushing sadness of modern life! Neat!

    And the
    ham fell on top of him and nearly knocked him senseless.

    He choked and spluttered;

    TOM: He never expected to live a 'death by snu-snu' meme.

    for the ashes filled his mouth and
    his eyes, and his ears, too. For a moment he lay there on his back;

    MIKE: Surprised he isn't trying to eat his way out of the ham.

    but soon he managed to kick the heavy ham off his stomach and then he
    felt a little better.

    CROW: On to seconds!

    But he was terribly frightened. And though his
    eyes smarted so he could hardly see, he sprang up and found the
    doorway.

    TOM: [ As Fatty ] 'Lead on, my trusty moustache! ... Oh no!'


    Fatty swallowed a whole mouthful of ashes as he dashed across
    the barnyard.

    CROW: And then he remembered he could've eaten the ham off him instead.

    And he never stopped running until he was almost home.
    He was puzzled. Try as he would, he couldn't decide what it was that
    had flung him upon the floor.

    MIKE: But he suspects Jasper Jay.

    And when he told his mother about his adventure---as he did a whole month later---she didn't know exactly
    what had happened, either.

    TOM: [ As Mrs Raccoon ] 'Why didn't you just eat your way out of the ham?'
    CROW: [ As Fatty ] 'I panicked, okay?'


    "It was some sort of trap, probably," Mrs. Raccoon said.

    TOM: [ As Mrs Raccoon ] 'I bet they were catching hams and you just got in the way.'


    But for once Mrs. Raccoon was mistaken.

    MIKE: It was in fact an ordinary surveillance mission, not trapping.


    It was very simple.

    CROW: Allow me to explain until it is complicated and you are tired.

    In his greedy haste Fatty had merely
    bitten through the cord that fastened the ham to the pole.

    TOM: In his defense, that was Cajun spiced cord.

    And of
    course it had at once fallen, carrying Fatty with it!

    But what do you suppose?

    CROW: Oh, that pet mice just assume they're all really good at foraging because look, there's always food blocks right where they want.

    Afterward, when Fatty had grown up,
    and had children of his own,

    TOM: Wait, Fatty grows up? Spoilers!

    he often told them about the time he had
    escaped from the trap in Farmer Green's smokehouse.

    MIKE: Raccoons don't have a lot of epics, you understand.


    Fatty's children thought it very exciting. It was their
    favorite story.

    TOM: Above even the barber-shop saga.

    And they made their father tell it over and over
    again.

    CROW: And he never suspected they were putting him on.




    [ To be continued ... ]--
    Joseph Nebus
    Math Blog: https://nebusresearch.wordpress.com
    Humor Blog: https://nebushumor.wordpress.com --------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

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