Such a Night MDT 2020 Act 1
A chaotic variety show script with two hosts trading meta-commentary about a fictional comedy program, sketches about penguins in Tierra del Fuego, parodies of "I Need a Hero" and "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria," and recurring jokes about a little tin box. The piece jumps between performance anxiety, absurd interviews, teenage romance, and philosophical musings on death and change.
Chapters
TV's hottest show, the King Kaiser Comedy Cavalcade!
And every Saturday night at 8 PM, we went on the air live!
Live with us! God, once, just once, I wanted to sneak in and fiddle the blocks before I'm here 5 minutes early so America would see the show before the show!
But back then, they were a lot more careful about violence on television.
Ahh! I just sing a bunch and this is crap!
I sing how much to peaches?
They told me the cream in Skittles was powdered!
Somebody shoot me!
It's all crap or does that lack of sugar?
Together now, 5, 6, 7, 8! 5, 6, 7, 8!
20 million people. No, 20 million plus. 20 million plus Americans Watching us, curling up on sofas, calling in their bets, passing out the popcorn, turning on their television sets. 20 million ordinary folks, and your careers go down the drain if they don't like the jokes. 20 little minutes to get right in front of 20 million people. Tonight, that's Team Kaiser. Star of comedy, Cal McCain, a great guy.
This is crap.
Honest. And these are my fellow writers, Cy Benson, head writer, also known as the ulcer that walks like a man. And here's Alice Miller and Herb Lee, two people joined at the funny bone.
Cy, these jokes are old enough to vote. You've got to make some cuts. No cuts.
Nobody cuts my material. No one. Cy, you cut those dogs out of the monologue yet? Pedigree, baby. 20 million reasons we're guaranteed to fall. 20 million small catastrophes, but we're calm. Facing every challenge, performing at our peak.
90 little minutes of the dream in front of 20 million people.
Casey Downing, assistant to the producer. She's nuts about me.
Casey, we all set for a drink on the date after the show? Fake it! You don't have to We had one date and you completely humiliated me. I thought you liked my war expressions. I was planning to eat those breadsticks.
I am in love with the brick girl. It felt like paradise. It felt like war. It felt like— it felt like 1954. It was the best time I ever know.
My first jokes were on the air.
My first credit shining there.
Benji Stone!
Benji Stone! Telephone. Hello?
Benjamin, darling, it's your mother. Mom, it's almost showtime.
I hope the colleagues remind you you're coming for dinner tomorrow night.
Yeah, I know.
Are you bringing Kate? Oh, Mom, I'm kind of busy now.
You can tell me if you are.
I'll tell Ricky you shouldn't stop at Copperheads when they get here. I'll bring cake, okay? Fruit or crump? Whatever you want. Benjamin darling, I want whatever you want. Crump. What would be that?
Fruit. Oh, I can't talk now, the show's coming on. Kiss and thank you, baby. Bye, Crump.
It's Saturday night.
It's Crump. Together now, 5, 6, 7, 8.
One minute to go.
Now, what a show.
20 million people expecting something great. 20 million places, everyone. It's too late. Let the costumes take place. Please keep me on the staff. Make the show work and please, most of all, please let the people laugh.
20 60 awful seconds to prepare. You hold your breath.
You pray for it.
And then you're on the air. 90 little minutes to survive in front of 20 million people.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Welcome to the Riverton High School MDT Review 2020! I have the money. What else is new? I'm not gonna fight for a cult, so never mind worrying. If that is important to you, at least I know where I stand. So worry, strike a plan, 'cause the time has come for action. Here's what I've learned. Clearly, I'm not wanted anymore. Now I'm not so young.
Mr. Rex, may we ask you a question? It's amazing, is it not? That the city pays you slightly less than $50 a week, yet you purchased a private yacht. I am positive you are not must be joking. Any working man, you know what I have done. Some a month ago, I simply gave up smoking, and I put my extra pennies one by one into a little tin box, a little tin box that a little tin key unlocks. There's nothing unorthodox about a little tin box, about a little tin box, about a little tin box. A little tin box, a little tin box that a little tin key unlocks. There is more, not majority, lots of security in a little tin box. Mr. Y, we've been told you don't feel well, and we know you've lost your voice, but we wonder how you managed on a salary and leave to acquire a new false voice. I am haunted and now I have my speech updated. The egg is not in my testicle. My pizzicato did what Austin Abusa. And he spit all the egg yolk was put aside. Then he got what was put aside. Game 2. And Little Piggy was a little piggy, was then a little piggy, but was not an egg. I know what they talk about, a little tin box. About a little tin box. About a little tin box. A little tin box. A little tin box. There's a cushion for life's rude shocks. There is strength, health, and charity. Lots of prosperity in a little tin box. Hey, guys. Mr. Z, you're a junior official and your income's rather low. Yet you house a dozen women in the very best hotels. Would you kindly explain how so? I can tell your honor doesn't wish to admit it, and it sounds a little sissy hollering it, but for one whole week I worked without my lunches, and it amounted up, your honor, to my big of your honor be my fist. It's just a little tin box, a little tin box that a little tin key unlocks. There's nothing unorthodox about a little tin box, about a little tin, about a little tin box, a little tin box, a little tin box. In a tin box all aglitter with blue chip stocks. There is something delectable, almost respectable, in a little tin box. In a little tin box.
Way down south in Tierra del Fuego, near the tip of the Antarctic Sea, lives a pink and In Spanish, pingüinos. And they crawled up in the snow happily. But one penguin was not like the others. She was terribly, terribly shy. While the others would spawn, she'd just look at her phone and watch penguin earrings pass her by. But one day, as she lay with the other stars above, another penguin looked her way. In love.
He told her, I want you to say you'll be mine.
Her wig is sliced her off, there you are. I need you.
You're driving me silly.
Yes, and we don't There's no doubt about it. The conversation began how agelessly when I looked in your eyes of yellow, how my wildest dreams uncurled. And now that I've got 'em right here at the bottom, I'm sitting on top of the world. So what's my destiny? Whoa, whoa, whoa. And today elsewhere to be true. And build us a nice cozy iceberg and ignore Michael Bay. Yes, let's eat a dip of lost thing we know, and loon on the big iceberg, and curl up inside of our igloos, and laugh till we can't laugh anymore.
Yes, let's eat a dip of lost thing we know, and To be cared for. Any more. All of MBT in fervent love. Party?
And my chest is unheated. Lord, have mercy. I'm burning a hole where I lay. Burning my love is burning through my soul. Burning me alive. It's burning out of control. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You got me burning right up.
You got me burning right up. You got me burning with love. <LYRICS>Oh, your kisses lift me higher like the sweet song of a choir, and you light my morning sky. We're burning love, we're all burning up. As your kisses lift me higher like the sweet song of a choir, and you light my morning sky.</LYRICS> Freedom!
Independence Day! What a mockery! Each is a slave to Allah. What I believe? I believe in freedom of the spirit. Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring your winter garments of repentance flee. Know what I mean?
No, I don't. I hardly ever do.
Muriel, are you afraid of life?
Should I be?
No, don't be afraid of life. Just live, Muriel. Life is to live.
I don't see how I can help but do that, Richard.
Look, Muriel. Will you live life with me? Will you be engaged to me?
Engaged? I'm only 15!
Don't be afraid of life! Come, fill the cup, and in the fires bring your winter garments of repentance. Flee!
I don't know if I should do that, Richard.
You don't? Just about die. Because I love you. Well, all right then, Richard.
Wonderful!
Then we're engaged! Oh, yes! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were married?
Yes, but it's so long to wait. You have to go to Yale.
Yale, Yale, who wants to go to Yale? All those years of hula hula.
Your brother goes to Yale.
And look at him, a Philistine, a big fat Peruvian. Muriel, now that we're finally engaged, will you finally let me kiss you?
When you're sober!
Can't I kiss you now?
Richard Miller in broad daylight!
You ever gonna let me?
I will. Sometime.
Maybe. Tonight! After dark.
Well, if I won't do it in broad daylight, I most certainly won't do it at night! That's just plain sneaky!
Miriam, come over here. You're driving me crazy.
Richard, what would you do if something happened to me?
Like what, Sophie?
Like what happened to Annabel Lee in the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea. And we loved with a love that was more than love. I am my Annabel Lee, and that is the reason, as all men know, in this kingdom by the sea. How wind blew up loud by night, chilling my Annabel Lee. How wind blew up loud by night, chilling my Annabel Lee. Killing my Annabel Lee.
I would die, I would die, Before even one minute went by, I would lean down and kiss you goodbye. Then I'd die. But that could happen to me instead of you.
And if it did, what would you do? If you did it, I'd do it too.
I would die.
Supposing one morning I'd fragile and faint. I'd fall on the floor and I'd feel bad. The doctors don't know what it is or when it, but like it's not, I've gotten what Camille had. Blech!
I would die, I would die, before even one minute went by. I would lay down and kiss him goodbye. Then I'd die. That could happen to me instead of you. And if it did, what would you do?
If you did it, I'd do it too. I would die.
But nothing is going to happen. It's supposed to be real. Our love will keep us alive. And then he'll die because she knew deep in her heart she would never marry Mark. But we're engaged now, and it just 4, 5 years, we'll be married. I'll marry you, and I'll take care of you forever.
Supposing, supposing, so many things, love songs and singing and crying. My daddy is waiting to give me a bang, but suddenly I'm wounded and I'm dying.
I would die, I would die before even one minute went by. I would lay down and kiss you goodbye, then I'd die.
Richard, are you really going crazy? I never let you kiss me.
Oh, Muriel, if only you knew.
It's driving me crazy.
Is it really? Tell me about it.
If only I could find a guy would make the first move. If only I could find a guy who, when he went to kiss me, he'd take the toothpick out of his mouth. If only I could find a guy— all the good men gone, and where are all the guys? Yes, we want her work in me to fight the rising eye, to join the fair white knight upon the steed. Lay at night, I toss and I turn, I toss and I turn, and I dream of what I need. I need a hero. Somewhere after midnight, in my wild despair, There's something there. Somewhere just beyond my reach, there's someone reaching out to me. Beyond the thunder and rising from the heat, it's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet. I need a hero! I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night. He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be fresh from the fight. I need a hero! I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light. He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fresh and he's gotta be more than light. Roger that! Up where the mountains meet the heavens above, up where the light splits the sea, I can swear there's someone somewhere watching me. Through the wind and the chill and the rain and the storm and the flood, I can feel it approach like a fire in my blood. He's gotta be super, he's gotta be larger than life.
Larger than—
doo doo doo doo!
Doo doo doo doo doo! Doo doo doo doo doo!
I, I am a hero!
Who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation. In the number "From Now On," P.T. Barnum realizes the wrongdoings he's been doing in his life—gambling, circus, friends. I'm smarter up here than I am down here, and up here I am not too smart. They might say one thing or another. They might have smiled at me once or twice. If they have breasts and they're not my mother, then all I hear is And my hands get heavy on my hands. I don't know what to do with my hands or my feet. I'm frozen in fear like a deer with the lights in the eyes in the middle of the street. They might be wanting to get touchy-feely. They might be talking to me really nice. They might as well be speaking Swahili, 'cause all I hear is "ho ho ho," and my tongue gets big, and I can't move my knees, and my eyeballs freeze, and all I see is a tunnel, and there's cotton in my head. My legs, they're of lead and my brain goes dead and then I get sick, dead, dead, dead in the mind. And I find that then I kind of go into an infantile trance. Like I am peeing in my— oh, well, I'm not literally peeing in my pants, you know what is relevant? Peeing in my pants. I lose my wits, my lights go off, or get all sticky in the pits. I smell like falafel And my ears get hot and I feel really awful and all I hear is— I'm dead in the head, dead in the water, dead in the magical sea quoll sack. Go ahead and tell me I should keep on trying. Go ahead and tell me I should break the ice. I'll be standing here, deaf and dying. All I hear is—
She waltzes on her way to mass and whistles on the stairs, and underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair. I've even heard her singing in the abbey. She's always late late to chapel, but her penitence is real. She's always late for everything except for every meal. I really hate to say it, but I very firmly feel Marie is not an asset to the Abbey. I'd like to say a word and have a thought. I'm safe, Margarita. Marie! Maria makes me laugh. How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a clown and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria? A flippity-jibbit! Oh, I love the words on clown! The tiny feet or the ghost of the same woman?
Strangely quiet, but how the storm simply rests to strike again. Standing waiting, I think of her. I think of strange— Mary, she leaves the room, yet remains, she lingers on.
Something stirs me to think of her, I think of her.
Death, she casts her spell, all night we hear her sighs, and now a girl has Who has her eyes? She has her eyes. The girl has Elise Hazel eyes. Those eyes that saw him happy long ago. Those eyes that gave him life and hope he'd never known. How can he see the girl who missed those takes?
She has her eyes. eyes still have these hazel eyes.
Those eyes that closed and left me alone. Those eyes I fear will never ever let me go. How can I see this girl who has her hazel eyes? In Lily's eyes, a castle, this house seemed to be. And I have Bravest knight became. My lady fair was she. Has her eyes, she has mine, then these eyes are lies. Those eyes that loved my brother never me. Those eyes that never saw me never knew. I long to hold her close, to live at last in you. Blue skies. Imagine me a lover. I longed for the day she'd turn and see me standing there, but God had led her stay.
She has her eyes.
She has.
She has Elise Hazel eyes.
Those eyes that saw. Those eyes that long have burned me. How can I now forget all I liked to be, in love, alive and whole, in Mary's eyes, in Mary's eyes? —Wait for it!
—Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it!
—Grandfather was a fire and brimstone preacher— Preacher, preacher, preacher! —But there are things that the harmonies and hymns won't teach us—
Teach up, teach up, teach up.
My mother was a genius. Genius. My father commanded respect. Respect, respect. When they died, they left no instructions, just a legacy to protect. Death doesn't discriminate. Few sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes. We get put in anyway. We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.
And if there's a reason I'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I'm going to wait for it. I'm going to wait for it. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. I'm the one thing in life I can control. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. I'm inimitable, I'm an original. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. I'm not falling behind or running late. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. I'm not standing still, I'm walking away. Wait, wait, wait. Hamilton faces an endless uphill climb. He has something in proof, he has got it. Lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.
He wastes no time, time, time, time.
Hamilton doesn't hesitate, he keeps his score straight. He takes it, he takes it. Days, and he keeps living anyway. Change the game he plays and he raises the stakes. And if there's a reason he's still alive and so you survived, then so be it. I'm willing to wait for it. Wait for it. I'm willing to wait for it. Life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway.
there up in my room I plan my conquest on my own.
Never asked for a helping hand no one would understand I never asked the pair who thought me just in case they said oh.
Up in my room, I planned my conquest. On my own, never asked for a helping hand. No one would understand. I never asked the pair who thought me low, just in case they said, oh. Pity the child who has ambition, knows what he wants to do, knows that he'll never fit into the system others expect him to. Pity the child who knew his parents, saw their faults, saw their love die before his eyes. His eyes. It is a child that cries. He never asks, did I cause your distress? Let go the hunger, easy to get away. Pity the child with no source of weather, no escape, no defense from the tides that pass. Always a step behind. I never called to tell her, oh my God, I was only pursuing. Pity the child, but not forever. Not if he stays that way. He could have all he's ever wanted if he's prepared to pay.
Pity instead the careless mother. What'd she miss?
What'd she lost? Would she let me go? I wonder, does she know? I'd never call a crazy thing to do. Just in case she said, ooh. Who said it's true that the holy only happen to our own? They don't know me and you. I don't think you have to believe that to change is what you need. You can change what makes you be. When you're high up to the moon, you can get a bit high and slow, and we'll take it slow. And grow as we go, grow as we go. You won't be the only one I am unfinished. I've got so much left to learn. I don't know how this will run, but I'd like your company through every twist and turn. Who stands you through at the growing old age? I don't know who we'll become. I can't promise there's not rage in the stars. But I believe that when it's done, we're gonna see that it was better that we grew up together. Tell me you don't want to leave. Coming to change is what you need. You can change right through me. When your heart explodes, you can never like it before. We'll take it slow and let romance begin. Oh Lord, grow as we go. Grow as we go. Oh Lord, grow as we go.
