Saturday 16 January 2010

Voyage to the Center of the Leno!

Captain's Log: Stardate January 16, 2010.

It had been a week of upheaval in the Mediaverse. The NBC quadrant of the Broadcast Galaxy had been rocked by a bloody civil war. Little did I know that I was soon going to plunge head-first into that heart of darkness....

Oh, wait, I already parodied Heart of Darkness.... Okay, then perhaps I was going to go on a FANTASTIC VOYAGE!

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Anyway, I was on the bridge, seducing an alien chick from Pandora, when I got a call from headquarters.

"Captain Furious D!" said Admiral Exposition. "We need you for an important mission!"

"I better be really important," I said, "because they say once you go blue, nothing else will do."

"It's very important," said Admiral Exposition. "We need you to solve a mystery."

"Doesn't that belong in one of my Private Eye parodies?" I asked, "This is a sci-fi parody."

"Just get your ship to the NBC system pronto," ordered the Admiral. "And meet an informant on the fringe of the system."

"Fine," I said, "but can it wait until I finish with the lady from Pandora?"

"I guess it could wait two whole minutes."

"Very funny."

#

The NBC system was a real mess, all but a handful of Cable Channel Planets had been all but destroyed by The Zucker. The Zucker sort of resembled a doughy Death Star, with glasses, and roamed from planet to planet, bombarding it with terrible brain-farts that take once prosperous worlds, and reducing them to rubble.

The Cable Planets were able to ward off The Zucker, and avoid the Zuckerfication, but they couldn't hold out for long. No one knew exactly why the Zucker was allowed to roam free, spreading chaos and destruction, or what made it seem so indestructible. It was only a matter of time before it cast it's vaguely egg shaped shadow on those worlds, and brought them down with the others.

I had to meet my contact in the battered wreckage of canceled shows that drifted in empty space, unseen and unpromoted. I beamed myself onto a piece of wreckage and came to a door marked "Andy Barker, PI."

I rapped three times, specifically "Fuck Da Police," by NWA.

"Come in," said a weak and battered voice, and I went in.

"You're Andy?" I asked.

"Yes," answered Andy Richter sitting in a pool of his own blood. He looked like he had been put through a wringer, then a blender, and after that the digestive system of a polar bear. "I need you to find out something."

"Like why you and Conan got boned off the Tonight Show after seven months," I asked, "even though they gave Leno three years to beat Letterman?"

"I know the answer to that," said Andy. "The Zucker just decided to attack. It didn't need a reason to attack other than to show the world that it could."

"Then what do you need to know?"

"I want to know why Leno went along with this!" barked Andy. "We thought he was a friend, a fellow comedian, and there he goes and becomes the Zucker's bitch, ruining everything for everyone!"

"What do you mean?"

"First he goes along with that 10 PM idea," said Andy, "when everyone with eyes could see it becoming a black hole within seconds. Then when it doesn't work out, he goes along with Zucker and usurps Conan from the Tonight Show. It can't be greed, he's got more money than Xenu, and it can't be revenge, because the change was all Zucker's idea. So why did he do it?"

"I'll find out," I said. "So, you're hiding out here?"

"Until a ship from Fox can come pick me up," said Andy. "And I hope they bring a bottle of Febreeze, so I can get the stench of brain-fart off me."

"I'll catch you later."

#

I beamed back to my ship. There was only one way I was going to get to Leno, and that was to get to the Zucker.

I turned on my cloaking device, and crept very carefully to the massive lumbering form of the Zucker. An Ebersole probe zipped by, screaming into empty space that it was all Conan's fault, and that all should hail the great and glorious Zucker, while $200 million in burnt bills floated in its wake. I crept by the mouth of the Zucker, the crushed limbs of Pimpbot 5000, and the Masturbating Bear pointing out for just a second before being sucked into its maw, never to be seen, or used profitably again.

I scanned the head of the Zucker, and there was no sign of Jay Leno. In fact there was no sign of anything in that bulbous head, just the noxious chemical reactions that made his brain-farts so destructive.

I swung along the bulk of the Zucker, scanning for any sign of Leno's presence. Then I saw it. Leno was there, wedged deeply in the Zucker's massive mighty rectum. Well, one thing was for certain, I wasn't going to dock there. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's your thing, it's just not how this Space Cadet plays.

I activated my transporter, and prepared to beam in to the lower intestines. I was so close to finding Jay Leno I could smell it, or maybe that was the burritos I split with the chick from Pandora.

#

The lower intestines of the Zucker were strewn with the semi-digested wreckage of shows, both good and bad, all destroyed by the stomach acid of synergy. Good thing I wore my bio-hazard suit.

I turned a corner, and there he was, Jay Leno himself.

At least my scanner was telling me it was Jay Leno, but what crouched before me was an emaciated Gollum-like creature with puffy silver hair, and a massive chin.

"My precious," muttered the creature, clutching something close to its chest, "Jay is nothing without his precious."

"Jay Leno?" I asked.

The creature looked up. It was Jay Leno, but there wasn't much left of him.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"I got my precious back," hissed Leno. "Leno's nothing without his precious, he doesn't exist unless he's on TV every weeknight. He needs his precious."

"Are you saying that you helped the Zucker screw Conan," I asked, "not out of greed, or revenge, but because of your deeply rooted insecurities?"

"Go away!" hissed Leno. "You want to take Leno's precious! You are like having comedians as guests! They do too well, and they'll take Leno's precious! It's Leno's he's nothing without it!"

"Can I see the precious before I go?" I asked.

"Just a glimpse," hissed Leno. "You can see Leno's precious for a glimpse because you're not funny and can't take his precious away."

Leno opened his hand for just a second, but it was long enough for me to see his "precious." It was the Tonight Show, but it had been reduced to ashes and covered in shit.

It was then, for the first time in my life, I actually felt a glimmer of pity for a multi-millionaire.

Just a glimmer.

Then I turned on my communicator and said.

"Beam me up."

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