20.Peter And The Wolf
Hello, Boys and Girls.
This is a story that I like to call, ''Peter and the Wolf''.
Are you sitting comfortably？
Are you!？
Good, then let's begin....
Each character is represented by a different instrument of the
synthesized
orchestra.
For instance, the part of Billy the Bird is played by a flute,
like this...
The part of Bruce the Duck is played by an oboe...
Louie the Cat is a clarinet. All right, he's not really a
clarinet. He's just --- you know, he's represented by a
clarinet....
The part of the Grandfather will be played by Don Amiche.
He... what？
Can't make it？ Oh. Huh.
Okay, um, hmm, in that case, the part of the Grandfather will be
played by,
huh, a bassoon....
Three French horns play the part of... uhm... three French
horns... uh...
(The Wolf! It's the Wolf!) Right! The Wolf. Seymore the Wolf....
The kettle drum and bass drum represent the sub-machine-gun fire
of the
hunters...
And, of course, as always, the part of Bob the Janitor is played
by the
accordion.
Well, that's it for the introductions. And now, the story.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... uh.... Oh, excuse
me...
Once upon a time --- I think it was last Thursday --- a boy
named Peter
opened the gate and went out into the big green meadow.
On the branch of a big tree sat a little bird.
''All is quiet'', said the bird.
''Holy cow! A talking bird!'', thought Peter.
Just then, Bruce the Duck came waddling by. Bruce was very happy
that Peter
hadn't closed gate and he decided to check out the deep pond in
the meadow.
Billy the Bird saw the Duck, so he decided to fly down and pick
an argument
with him.
''What kind of bird are you if you can't fly？'', he said; to
which the Duck
cleverly replied, ''I'm a duck! Stupid!''
They argued and argued. The Duck swimming in the pond. The
little bird
skipping along the shore. (Scratch) Sorry.
Suddenly, something caught Peter's eye --- and you know how
painful that
can be. It was Louie the Cat crawling through the grass.
Louie the Cat thought, ''If the Bird is busy arguing, I'll just
grab him''.
So quietly, Louie crept towards him on his velvet paws. Well,
his paws
weren't really velvet... they were, you know, kind of like
velvet. It's
a, what d'ya call it？ Uh, a 'metaphor'. It's a metaphor, get it？
''Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!
Look
out! Look out! Look out!'', advised Peter.
The bird immediately flew up into the tree... while Bruce the
Duck quacked
at Louie the Cat... from the middle of the pond.
Louie the Cat walked around the tree and thought, ''Is it worth
climbing up
so high, or should I just send out for pizza？''
Grandfather came out. He was all bent out of shape because Peter
had gone
into the meadow.
''It's a dangerous place. If a Wolf should come out of the
forest, then what
would you do, huh？''
Peter did not answer, because after all, it was a rhetorical
question.
Boys like Peter are afraid of a lot of things, like Nuclear
annihilation and
flunking algebra, but they're not afraid of Wolves.
But Grandfather got Peter in a headlock and dragged him home,
telling him
that he was grounded and that he couldn't watch any cartoons for
three weeks.
Just then, as luck would have it, a big, mean, hairy, ferocious,
snarling,
carnivorous Wolf, huh, did come out of the forest!
But I guess we all knew that was coming. I mean, the story is
called,
'Peter and the Wolf'. We couldn't very well call it, 'Peter and
the Wolf'
if there wasn't any wolf, could we？
Huh, that would be really stupid.
The Cat was up the tree in a twinkling; which is about, oh, 2.3
seconds.
Bruce the Duck quacked so hard that he propelled himself
backwards
and up onto dry land.
For those of you taking notes, this is a fine practical example
of Newton's
First Law of Motion, which clearly states that for every action
there is
an equal and opposite reaction.
But no matter how quickly Bruce tried to waddle away, he
couldn't escape
Seymore the Wolf who was wearing his best pair of tennis shoes.
The Wolf was closing in on the Duck. It was getting closer and
closer
and closer and then and then....
He got 'em! He got 'em! Oh no! Oh, it was terrible!
Oh, oh I can't believe it! Oh!
The humanity! The humanity! Oh my God! Ahh-hoh, oh, huh.
And then with one big gulp, Seymore 'wolfed' him down. (Burp)
Um, let me recap the story briefly in case you just walked into
the room：
Louie the Cat was sitting on one branch. Billy the Bird was on
another
branch, not too close to Louie, and Bob the Janitor was at home
defrosting
his refrigerator.
The Wolf walked around the tree so many times that he made a
small trench.
Meanwhile, Peter was standing behind the closed gate,
videotaping everything
that was going on.
Suddenly Peter got an idea. He ran home and got a big spool of
his
grandfather's unwaxed dental floss.
One of the branches of the tree that the Wolf was circling was
conveniently
stretched out over a high stone wall.
Peter scaled the wall, lickity-split, which is even faster than
a twinkling.
Then he grabbed the branch and climbed onto the tree.
Peter said to Billy the Bird, ''I want you to fly down and
circle around the
Wolf's head to distract him, but be very careful he doesn't
catch you and
bash your skull in and tear out your lungs and chew you up into
itsy-bitsy
teeny-tiny little pieces.''
''Okay'', said the bird.
Billy the Bird almost touched the Wolf's head with his wings
while the Wolf
snapped angrily at him. ''Go ahead'', said the Wolf, ''make my
day''.
''Come on, cut it out'', snarled the Wolf, ''you're askin' for
trouble,
Punk''. But Billy the Bird just kept on harassing him.
Meanwhile, Peter made a lasso out of the dental floss and,
carefully letting
it down, caught the Wolf by the tail and pulled with all his
might.
Feeling himself caught, the Wolf got really ticked off and
started jerking back
and forth.
Peter tied the other end of the dental floss to the tree and
left the Wolf
dangling in mid-air.
''Hey, Big Bad Wolf'', said Peter, ''why don't you come up here
and get
us now？''
''I would'', said the Wolf, ''but, well, I'm kinda tied up right
now.''
Just then, some members of the National Rifle Association came
out of the
woods, firing their magnums, uzis and bazookas.
But Peter yelled, ''Don't shoot. Billy the Bird and I have
caught the Wolf.
Now, let's take him to the Zoo''.
''Great idea!'', said the hunters, ''and if he likes that, next
week we'll
take him to Disneyland!''
Just imagine the victory parade. Peter was at the head. (Flush)
But after a few minutes he was through and then the parade began
with Peter
at the very front.
After him, the hunters leading Seymore the Wolf.
Then Grandfather, and Louie the Cat, and finally, Bob the
janitor who had to
sweep up the whole mess.
Grandfather shook his head discontentedly, ''Well, Peter, what
if you hadn't
caught the Wolf？ What then？''
''Well'', said Peter, ''he probably would have ripped out my
intestines with
his teeth.''
''(Cough／gag／choke)'', said Grandfather, ''I know that, you
idiot.
It was a rhetorical question.''
Above them, Billy the Bird chirped proudly. ''Yeah, that's
right. We bad.
We bad''.
Granfather decided that he'd had enough of the pond and the
meadow and the
whole stinking scene, so he ran off to Los Angeles and joined a
Heavy Metal
band.
And what about Bruce the Duck？
Well, the Wolf had been in such a hurry that he swallowed him...
alive!
which means the gastric juices slowly disolved his body and he
died a long,
painful death.
However, you'll be happy to hear that just a few years later he
was reincarnated
as Shirley MacLaine.
And the moral of the story is... oral hygiene is very important.
Make sure you
see your dentist at least twice a year
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