Original subtitles

Uh, Stephanie?

Yes? Uh, I thought I asked for a cheese omelet. There's no cheese in here.

Did you look? Maybe it's further in.

Stephanie?

Good morning, guys.

Notice anything different?

Not with the naked eye.

I'm carrying... the new morning paper.

You do have that glow.

County morning news.

Gee, they must have pulled an all -nighter to come up with that.

It's real thick and it's got all this extra stuff.

Those are sections, George.

You know, this paper carries Mary Worth and she still looks the same.

Does she know how to take care of herself or what?

What's the headline?

Mrs. Betty Atwater trucking to Tideville with sister this morning.

It's nothing but a scandal sheet.

We'll probably do some shopping, says Betty.

No doubt she'll be getting a perm as well, argue experts.

Okay, here's your cheese omelet.

Stephanie, don't you think it would taste better if the cheese slice were

unwrapped?

I don't think so.

Stephanie, we have a new morning paper.

Ew, I'm not touching it. World events gets your hands all icky and black.

Well, that's what kept me out of the political arena.

Oh, look, Dick. It's got an entertainment slash livestock section.

Hey, there's a review of Vermont Today by some guy, Curtis Bill Gray.

What does it say?

Is it good?

Well, look, honey, what does some stupid Vermont pencil pusher know about local

talk shows anyway?

Besides, we all love you.

But is it good?

If any of you suffer from the agony of insomnia,

fear not.

I have the cure.

Dick Loudon, Vermont Today.

Dick Loudon, the alleged host, has all the charisma of Pete Moss.

Now, see, irritating, irritating, shifty eyes.

Continued on page 12C4.

Dick, don't pay any attention. He doesn't know what he's saying. Although

says it well.

my other brother, Daryl.

Oh, I guess you've perused the diatribe.

Don't worry. As you can tell, we're not ashamed to be seen with you.

And vice, um... Thanks. Thanks, guys.

The reason we're here is, well, Eureka! We hit pay dirt.

Larry, what happened?

Well, last night when Daryl here was whipping up a batch of pancakes for the

morning and they started blistering,

I noticed that one of them started to form an eerie likeness to one of our

greatest historical figures.

Who? Paul Anka.

It's as plain as the shifty eyes on your face.

Gaze upon the mystical flapjack.

It looks just like a pancake.

Wait, wait. Does Paul Anka have a beard?

Oops, pocket fuzz.

biggest thing to happen to us since Daryl had mud splashed on him by a motor

Tom Bosley.

Or was it David Dole?

Anyway, we bet Paul Ankle will plug in special lyrics for My Way in our honor.

We'd be obliged if you'd spread the word of our blessed vision, but not until

we've had time to gear up for the onslaught of curiosity seekers.

Guys, I put a hold on that gearing up to tell you the truth. I don't see

anything. Wow, Paul Anka!

Okay,

I fixed a leg on the wooden bird.

Oh, good. I was afraid we were going to have to shut down.

Don't disappear with it. I'm sort of wrapped up in that Betty Atwater story.

It seems she slammed the car door on her sister's coat and dragged the hem all

the way to Tyville.

I think I smell a Pulitzer.

Dick, you still want to read that rag even after that review?

Joan, I'm not going to hold a grudge. Oh, look, there's another review. Let's

see who we think the teeth into today.

Oh, it's you again, Dick.

Last time I wrote a less than glowing review of Vermont Today starring Dick

Loudon, thinking that I might have done unfair to base my judgment on one

viewing, I watched some tapes of Pascoe's, and it is with that bowed in

that I report I was wrong.

I let Loudon off easy.

I didn't even scratch the surface.

of banality and sheer dullness that is Vermont today.

This is insane. I can't read anymore.

Worst of all is his habit of sitting. When Dick

Loudon sits in a chair, one is instantly reminded of a koala bear propped up on

Johnny Carson's desk during a visit by Joan Embry.

Next issue.

Dick Loudon, the voice that makes your ears bleed.

I think he's starting to exaggerate now, Dick.

Hi.

Hi. Oh, hi, Jim. Hi, Chester.

We saw that review, Dick.

Just think, all this time we've been watching your show, we didn't know one

good.

But we want you to know, that we still watch Vermont today. We just pull the

shades down.

Yeah.

It's become a guilty pleasure.

Did you guys come over here just to pour salt in the wounds?

No. We were in the neighborhood to see the pancake.

It's awesome, Dick.

Just think, Paul Anka's face in our town, everyone's all abuzz.

Let's go back and see it again.

My ears are okay. How about yours?

Well, that does it. I'm going to go to the paper and confront that critic.

Dick, do you think that's a good idea?

I know how to handle this.

When I was in fourth grade, there was this bully and he wouldn't stop picking

me. He'd push me down and he'd take my lunch, but I put him into that.

How? I brought two lunches.

I don't think that strategy is going to work with this critic. Honey, you didn't

let me finish. Then I brained him with a chunky.

busy destroying someone else's life.

I'll wait.

Wait a minute, don't I know you?

I'm Dick Loudon.

Oh, yes.

Yes, I thought I felt the charisma level of the building plummet.

Look, I'm not here to pick a fight.

All I want to know is why you're running this smear campaign against me.

It's nothing personal, Mr. Loudon.

I just think you're awful.

I mean, I'm just doing my job as you're doing yours.

Isn't there something else you could trash besides my show?

Even, Mr. Loudon, if I thought there was something worse, I'd leave you alone.

Have you seen Pearl of Pearl's... Never mind. What is

it? I mean, why me?

Well, here's the thing. Sit down.

I'll avert my eyes.

You see, Mr. Loudon, I get paid to hate.

I mean, that's my specialty. I mean, it's what I do.

When I was working in Syracuse, single -handedly, I closed Connie Stevens and

Tommy Smothers in bus stops.

You're the devil incarnate.

And somehow your show opened up a well of hatred in me that I just didn't know

had.

Look at it this way, Loudon.

I'm a kid.

You're a candy store.

You know what I think?

I think you are a bitter, twisted, vindictive, frustrated coot who takes

sort of perverse pleasure in trying to destroy innocent and hard -working

people. I mean, it is guys like you...

who

weep at the drop of a...

What are you doing?

It's always like this when somebody yells at me. I mean, you're right. I

you're absolutely right. I'm swill.

Oh, come on. It's not always that bad.

I like some things in your reviews.

Oh, you're just saying that.

Well, yeah, but...

You would use single ply.

Right now?

Now are you okay?

Yes, I guess so. Thank you.

But I'm not going to stop my reviews.

What? I'm going to go on trashing you till I've driven you off the airwaves.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

Oh, yeah?

Well, next time I'll be back.

And I'll be packing a chunky.

snake your line over our lawn.

And you got two seconds to fold up those pup tents.

Honey, has the morning news come yet? I haven't seen it.

Uh, George, have you seen the morning news?

Uh, no.

I could have sworn I saw it outside.

Maybe one of the pancake people used it to start their hibachi.

By the way, Dick, I just want you to know that I think being with you is

at all like watching time -lapse photography of a guy washing his feet.

Okay, where's the paper?

Yesterday, I was paid a visit by Dick Loud.

And I can gleefully report that he is as tiresome in person as on TV.

He is to television what?

How two books are to literature.

Ha! The joke's on.

Well, actually, it's still kind of on you, isn't it, Dick?

Dick, before you go on, I've done some market research on this Bill Gray.

Michael, how do you do market research on one guy?

We flipped into his office.

Where there's a will, there's a window.

Now, I've made up a list of his top ten fave raves, which we can, oh, so subtly

work into the show. So here, clip on this Mike Nesmith monkey hat.

Michael, I'm not going to change just to please some raving lunatic hack.

Okay, Dick.

Michael, where's my chair?

Dick, you do realize if you have a chair, you're going to have to sit, and

that's prime Bill Gray bait.

I mean, we have to throw him one bone.

Michael, I want my chair back. Fine, Dick.

Might as well paint a bullseye on your bottom.

Which isn't a bad idea, because he is an archery nut.

Michael? Say no more, Dick. I'm used to smoke pouring out of my engines when I

pitch ideas to you.

So I've come up with a completely opposite strategy.

If you can't join him, fight him.

What are you saying? Give that Bill Gray bilgewad a taste of his own medicine.

Here. Feast your 2020s on this baby.

Curtis Bill Gray is a fatty?

Whoa, it's even more stingy.

Michael, I am not going to stoop to such a pile of petty debt.

I'm going to go out there and do my regular show.

Okay, Dick.

Have a good one.

And now, it's Vermont Today, starring Dick Loudon.

Hey, who gave him back his chair?

I'm, uh... I'm... I'm Dick... I'm Dick Loud. And on today's show,

we will, um... We'll be, uh...

Look, I... I just want to say that a certain person in this town has

been taking pot shots at me, and I personally refuse to stoop to his...

Curtis Bill Gray's a big fat...

I did not say today's show was awful.

Yes, you did.

No, I didn't. I just think that you may have gone a little bit over the line by

staging that why Bill Gray makes me sick content.

Honey, the guys continuously were ripping me apart in the press.

And I'm sure everyone in town feels it's only fair that I use my show as a form

to fight back.

Dick, we just watched Vermont Today.

Pretty low blow.

For shame, for shame.

Well, maybe not the whole town.

It's one thing what he did to you in the press.

But to call a man a fatty.

To hear that kind of language coming out of the set.

And on a Sunday.

We finally get a first -rate critic in town and you have to badmouth him. He

called me the video sandman. And don't forget the human anesthetic.

I'm the king of coma.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, but he's only one person.

And you're an innkeeping, how -to, book -writing, TV -starring conglomerate.

Another case of a big corporation stepping on a little guy.

I'm not a corporation.

Mr. Loudon, I came as soon as I saw the show.

And my eyes weren't too teary to drive.

Oh, so you must be that low -life Bill Gray.

Charmed, I'm sure.

Gee, you sure can't fault him on his manners.

You're Curtis Bill Gray?

He's not fat.

So not only was it shocking to hear, but it wasn't even true.

Oh.

Double for shame.

Look, excuse me, gentlemen, excuse me, but I really don't need the help of two

country bumpkins to get satisfaction from the likes of Loudon.

Wait a minute, that sounds like an insult.

I didn't think you'd pick up on that till next Tuesday.

And that was probably another one.

Boy, he's mean.

I told you.

You know, maybe I was wrong to concentrate on you, Loudon. It seems

town is full of people right for my special sort of ridicule.

Maybe I could make it a regular feature.

This week in Boobville.

Uh -oh, now we're in trouble.

What are we going to do to stop him?

That's the problem. There's nothing we can do.

He's right, you know.

You're all quite powerless.

Wait a minute.

Chester, aren't you the mayor?

That's right, I am.

What does that mean?

It means you can get him back by passing laws and stuff.

Yeah.

Like what?

Well, you know, something to make his life here a living hell.

Or at least real annoying.

Like I could pass a law making wherever he parks a tow -away zone.

What about making it so that wherever he lives, people can come in and use his

phone?

And we could make it illegal to write bad reviews about Sunday talk shows.

Oh, come on, Dick. These have to be real.

Oh, look, this is all absurd. Now, look, try to follow this.

Even though you are the mayor, I know you can't put anything into law without

supporting votes from the town council.

Well, that's true, but we may just have enough town council members in

this room to make a quorum.

All those in favor of passing the Bill Gray Act signify by raising your hand

saying aye.

Aye!

Gee, Mr. Bill Gray, is that your blue car out there?

George, why don't you go and call Armand Trout Towing Service?

Dick, should I use our phone or just head over to Bill Gray?

Fine.

Fine, right, yes, I can take a hint. I don't have to be hit over the head.

Too bad.

You're not the only country bumpkins in the sea. I shall simply find another

town.

Oh, and, um, this country inn of yours, gauche.

This is my brother Daryl, and this is my other brother Daryl.

Our limelight days have come to a screeching halt.

And I guess it's true that you see the same people on the way down the ladder

going up.

Because here you are.

What happened?

See, Daryl here and one of his night -feeding friends, he's ate Paul Anka.

By the time we got to the kitchen, all that was left was Paul's... distinctive

forehead in a pool of maple syrup.

I don't know whether to laugh or run screaming into the woods.

This must be a big blow to your plans.

Well, actually, we were getting a little sick of hearing that endless loop of

having my baby.

But we haven't taken this lying down. Show them the lamb chop, Darrell.

Look, right there. The sturdy face of Joan Baez.

I'd be nothing.

Darn.

Come on, Daryl. We'd better get back to the cafe and let in the pancake

mourners.

Daryl here is leading a silent vigil.

You know, I think I'll always remember where I was when

I heard that the Paul Anka pancake was eaten.

Meow.