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What (Else) Can Go Wrong?
Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.
Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2011 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.
I was going to write a tie-in to The Christmas Card Caper, but alas, have had neither the time or the inspiration. Instead, I offer a little puzzle loosely based on a very bad pun. Those interested may like to try and identify the lyrics and the muppet concerned.
It was the result of a lot of things going on at once.
To be fair, the people owing the hall were something of a shoestring operation. Their office was populated by a second-hand desk (possibly antique, certainly the worst for wear), a computer so old it had two floppy drives, a printer that was not so much daisywheel as Daisy Bell (it printed double), and to crown it all, a photocopier from Korea with a manual in Japanese translated by a blind idiot. It was staffed by a succession of temps with names like Shaz, Shirl, and Traacii who were otherwise indistinguishable. With the possible exception that Traacii wore longer skirts.
And, of course, Christmas is the busiest season.
As a result, the room in question was somewhat overbooked. To be precise, the hall had been booked by: the Rodgers and Hammerstein Fan Club (for their South Pacific evening, full costume, with orchestra); the Synod and Convocation of the Illuminated Olericulturic Revisionists of Shrub-Niggurath; a joint evening with the Sesame Street fan club and the Classic Muppets fan club and finally, the Toshio Maeda fan club (but nobody minded him - he just sat in a corner with his DVD player).
Of course, the various groups made the best of it - after all, it is pure hell trying to get a hall during Christmas. Most of the fan clubs found some common ground (to whit, all but one corner of the hall), and the Illuminated Olericulturic Revisionists just tried to fit in where they could.
Unfortunately, even the best ceremony can be ruined when the sacrificial altar has to be set up in the orchestra pit. There are too many chances for the victim to escape, especially when the woodwind section have penknives and can reach the ropes, the brass and strings have instruments that can prod and poke cultists trying to recapture a fleeing sacrifice, and most especially when the audience gets in the way.
And to add insult to injury, some muppet started ad-libbing the words to the song.
Footnotes:
The Muppet and Lyrics are as follows (Highlight to read clearly):
The Muppet is Bert (who guest-starred in the first series of the show, singing "Some Enchanted Evening"), and the lyrics are: Summon chanted evening/you will flee a stranger/you will flee a stranger/across a crowded room.
I did say it was a bad pun.
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