Back towards the end of the fan-MiSTing era, it was sort of the in thing to do so-called episode guides for what we'd written. I only did this one that I can remember, but that's because I was terrible at it, at least in my own opinion, and it was essentially doubling the amount of work for an episode of one of these things.
See, the concept of these episode guides was to condense the whole what was pretty much a double-fan-fiction down to a few paragraphs, maybe a page at best, jokes and all, and provide further thoughts on it all. I only ever did this one because not only was it more work than I wanted to do for these things, as I said before, but I think I may also have done the base fan fiction's author a real disservice by trying to make the episode guide funny in and of itself. I don't recall any specific comments against it, but I have a feeling that there was a little discontent on her part as a result of this episode guide, which only added to my incentive to only do something like it one time.
With that in mind, let's have a look at one of the few things I actually do kind of regret having written: the episode guide for the MiSTed version of "A Day In The Life Of The Pizza Cats". It's better than the Sonic reviews I posed before, but also more regrettable, at least in my mind.
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Episode Guide for: A/The Day in the Life of the Pizza Cats with short New Wave Services.
Host Segments
Introduction: Jesse finds that his theater has gone anime after he plugs in a claw game.
Segment One: Samurai Pizza Cats Speedy and Guido show up in search of a place to hide from their shopping-happy female counterparts.
Segment Two: Jesse, Speedy and Guido leave the theater to find that the female Pizza Cats, Lucille and Polly, have found them. The ladies can be bribed with big chocolate bars, and are more than willing to fight for more.
Segment Three: Everybody leaves the theater for more snacks to find that Little Tokyo's Emperor Fred and his daughter Violet have come in search of dinner and video games. But watch out for the cotton candy spinner.
Segment Four: Dinner is served. Too bad tent stakes don't go well with raw maple syrup. Jesse saves the day by serving porterhouse steaks and taking his guests to the arcade.
Credits: Guido does karokie. Boy, he sure sounds like Roy Orbison.
Stringer: The aerodynamics of a romantic dinner.
The Short: New Wave Services
Wanna make a fortune the fast way? You do? Good. New Wave Services is just the thing for you. How fast will the money come? Well, that depends. How fast can you fold a piece of eight by eleven paper into thirds? After a description that is rather lengthy for an email, our kind would-be employers tell us that for the low, low cost of $50, we, too can get an information kit with the exact same instructions in the email plus enough pieces of paper to keep you folding until your fingers bleed. And what's more, you can keep at it for weeks, months, or even years if you're that lucky.
The Story: A/The Day in the Life of the Pizza Cats
OK, I'm sure you've noticed the "A/The" in the title. It's like that for a reason. While the author, who seemed nice enough during what little contact I had with her, did an overall good job with the story itself, listed the title as both "A" and "The" in the story. Not that it's a big flaw. In fact, it's an easy mistake to make when building a web site.
The story, of course, follows the waking hours of the Samurai Pizza Cats. The Samurai Pizza Cats are anthropomorphic cats who alternately run a pizza shack and fight evil in small town "Little Tokyo", or as it may be better known to fans of the anime/manga, Edoropolis. During the particular day this story takes place, there are no acts of evil taking place, so we get to see the petty squabbles and minor arguments of the Pizza Cats. The story begins with team leader Speedy fast asleep in bed, apparently too tired to get up. Of course, had it been me, at least one of my female cohorts would be having the exact same problem. But I digress. After threats of physical violence in the form of first a pack of dogs that could have been composed of anything from Corgis to Rottweilers and then from one of his female friends. Shortly thereafter, the whole team is assembled. The team's token fighting female, Polly, is fixing breakfast for the Corgis, or Rottweilers, or whatever kind of dogs they were. Why they were getting decent food while everyone else had to put up with yesterday's burned bacon is never fully explained. After a minor argument about that, the Cats open their pizza place for the day. Guido, the "hep cat" of the gang, says he can't take his position at the counter because of a bad foot, so Polly takes his position and has him delivering orders in the dining room instead. The first customer of the day gets his hinder kicked for hitting on Polly instead of ordering his food. Or paying for it. Anyway, he got his hinder kicked for hitting on Polly. Meanwhile, Guido is sending Speedy out with some early morning delivery orders. The route includes Jim Carrey, Marylin Manson, Stephen Spielberg, Stanley Tweedle, and the show's faux archvillian Seymore.
After the breakfast rush is over, it's prank call time. Guido and Polly offer somebody's granny a fake trip to a tropical island. I would have fallen for it, but Granny didn't. On the second attempt, the one passer-through left in the place hangs up the phone before anyone can pick up. Once prank call time is over, a pair of lovers enters and is virtually ignored in favor of a discussion of that morning's coffee. And before that five minute period is up, someone tries to call in a delivery order, but Guido steals the phone from restaurant manager Francine and proceeds to offend the customer.
Ten o'clock rolls around that morning and brings the lunch crowd with it. But before we can get around to offending more guests, we find out why Polly and Guido are pretending to be cute to one another. At least, a little bit. Which is a little bit like being on fire. Ten o'clock goes by like it wasn't even there.
At eleven, the place closes, according to local tradition. During the next two hours, Speedy decides he'll go to the mall with Polly and her friend Lucille. While there, a window display pinches Speedy's eye until he enters in a contest for a free dinner at the local bistro. He's obligated to take Polly, who's room he has invaded more than once. Once Polly and Lucille see what Speedy's doing, they immediately dump several tons of bricks on him and force him to walk home.
When the credit-happy shoppers get back to work, it's fifteen minutes into the lunch rush. After Speedy is hospitalized with a back injury, Polly breaks Guido's foot for trying to beg off register duty again. Guido once again has to deliver orders in the dining room.
At the 3 p.m. slowdown, Speedy comes home from the hospital and brings the mail with him. After pigeonholing everyone else's mail, Speedy finds out that he's won the romantic dinner at the bistro in the mall. The bonus is that Polly and Guido stop talking in unison for five minutes.
When the 5 p.m. dinner rush rolls around, Francine has a hernia about Polly and Guido talking in unison again. Speedy turns a minor argument into a petty squabble by asking Polly to come on a date.
Seven o'clock at night finds our heroes on the way to the mall for a double date, half of which will be free. Speedy is revealed to be a workaholic when he becomes depressed after Polly makes a pass at him. Dinner is either made completely of wood products or is a good, wholesome Midwestern steak-and-potatoes meal, depending upon the sentence. And then, a food fight breaks out. The food fight, of course, could have been avoided if Polly hadn't decided to hit on Speedy again by pretending she was Klingon and her food was gahk, the live worms often eaten in Klingon culture.
But it's not bad enough being thrown out of a fancy eating establishment. Not for our heroes. The boss has to beat them up for two hours before bed, as well. So, nine p.m. sees the Cats headed off to bed so they can be all rested up for another day of thrashing each other and insulting guests. Oh yeah, and occasionally taking on a petty villain.
Looking Back: Reflections
Well, well, well. Here's one of the better stories I've had the pleasure of MiSTing. The story itself was good, but it did get a little long before it was all over. The sad part is that it can't even hold a candle to some of what's out there. What has the honor of being the biggest contributor to the longness of this story was the script style it was written in. As hypocritical as that sounds coming from a MiST author, it *is* possible to write a script-style and not have it seem long. That's what MiSTers go for.
I must, however, give the author credit for being a true Samurai Pizza Cats fan. While I enjoyed the show when it aired here in the States, I never really wondered what the Cats did when they weren't fighting evil. Only a true fan would write a story about that.
On the bright side, I think I did manage to get off a few gags I would otherwise have held onto. The reason for that is, at least in part, because I chose a self-insertion format over a Joel/Mike and the Bots format. I think my biggest problem with that is I always try to keep Mike and the Bots in character, and I hold back on some of the better jokes, whereas the self-insertion format gave me a chance to let loose a bit.
In what limited contact I had with the author, I must say I think she's a fairly decent person who enjoys life. It shows in her writing as well as the other elements of her website. See the credits of the story for details on that.
I hope you all enjoyed reading all this, the story and the episode guide, as much as I did writing it. Feel free to email me at any time at: ambasosor_lardo@hotmail.com
--Jesse "J. Michael" Shearer
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The ending "signature" is one of the first times I used the "first initial, middle name" thing for something. Over the last decade or so, it's become a more standard thing, but this is when it was still relatively new.
For the time being, I'm out of things from the old disks that I can publish here. It's one of those things I'll have to make time for, but I'm sure there is more to come. But those are other stories for other times. In the meantime, there are other, more current things to come. See you then, folks!
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