Episode 37.1, Part 3

FADE IN---

SFX: Restaurant Scene

BUT: (Voiceover): We finally arrived at the Brown Derby at seven, where we'd arranged to have Marsh for dinner. To dinner. Dinner with Marsh. Me, Paz, Blinds and Marsh at dinner in the Brown Derby. The restaurant, not the hat.

PAZ: What the hell are you saying?

BUT: Wow. Those were some great almonds...

PAZ: And why are you doing the narrative again? We've been through this before. The name of the show? "Mick Pazlo"? Remember?

BLI: Yeah, flatfoot, since when do you get the narratives?

PAZ: Look, short stack, I don't need your help.

BLI: Listen up, Smart guy, you can't push me around.

PAZ: Back off four-eyes, or feel the wrath.

BLI: Hey, hiwaters, expecting a flood?

PAZ: Keep it up, carrot top, and you'll get yours.

BLI: I already got mine there, bucky. See?

(ALL SCREAM. UNISON): BLINDS! Put down that relish tray!

BUT: And pass the breadsticks.

(SFX machine is still malfunctioning and inserts entirely innappropriate noises here.)

PAZ: I'll take the narrative now.

BUT: Well, there's something we should talk about...

BLI: Don't move, or you'll do push-ups in daisies!

PAZ: (paper shuffling): What? Where's that. Do you have that?

BUT: What Rev are you on?

BLI: I've got 11-26 here.

PAZ: You idiot, there's no 11- 26! Everyone knows that, pea-brain.

BLI: Shut your fat gob, fish breath. It says right here...11, then here 26.

PAZ: Hah! That's parsley, freckle-face!

BUT: SHUT UP! SHUT UP! Stop your incessant fighting or you'll both get canned!

PAZ: We are near Cannery Row...

BUT: And your wise-crack ad-libs. This show is way over budget already, YOU already cost us one sponsor, YOU almost cost us another, and I'm not going to stand for this!

PAZ: Well, why don't you sit down then?

BUT: Oh, thanks. Corns. Hurt like mad.

PAZ: Corn?

BLI: Look out for that bison!

BUT:(grabbing paper) Give me that script! Here. Take mine. Now sit down and shut up 'til your cue comes up. Follow along with your finger if you have to. And YOU look at your menu and decide what to order. I wonder where Marsh is.

BUT: (Voiceover): This wasn't good. We'd waited for over an hour and still no sign of Marsh. We've had some bad cases, but this one smelled the worst.

PAZ: Maybe he's still in the studio. Remember he's in scene eleven and we never explain why he's on the east coast for like three minutes then he's back in California.

BLI: The magic of radio!

BUT:(Voiceover) We hailed a cab to take us to Marsh's apartment on the north side of town. As we rolled I tried Marsh's home, office and cell numbers, and got voicemail at all of them. After several minutes of explaining the difference between "fare" and "fair" and using it too many times in one scene, we arrived at Marsh's apartment complex.

PAZ: Wait! Wait! I want to hear the "fare" "fair" bit.

BLI: You know that doesn't make sense unless you're looking at the printed pages...

PAZ: What do you mean? I don't even have it. What's the Rev number on that?

BUT: Hmm. Kensington Road. Been a long time since we've seen these hills, eh old bean?

PAZ: Bhutto! Look! That jar's a jar.

BUT: Door.

PAZ: Oh. Yeah, that door's a door! Let's go!

BLI: You mean "that door's ajar." Can't you read, fiddle head?

BUT: It's Marsh's apartment.

PAZ: It's been ruck-sacked!

BLI: You mean ranshackle.

PAZ: Don't step in that! It could be evidence!

BUT: You both mean ransacked. (calling out):Marsh! Are you here? Marsh? It's Bhutto & Pazlo.

PAZ: (calling out) He means Pazlo & Bhutto. He must have a bad revision.

BUT:(still calling out) I have the last revision. Some old timers just don't realize when they've been bought out.

PAZ: (still calling out) No idea about that. Marsh has been traded?

BUT:(still calling out) That last transaction puts my stock ownership at 53% in the production company, so basically I'm in charge.

PAZ:(still calling out, less enthusiatically) But the show has my name on it. Besides it's a corporation...

BUT: (more of a mock calling out than real) It's a private corporation. Majority rule. I own a majority, with only two other shareholders.

PAZ: (no longer calling out, but talking as if doing so) And I own 14%...

BUT: ("   "           "          "         "         "          "       ) and Blinds the other 33%.

PAZ: Sooo..."B & B Productions" is... (crashing to floor passing out)

BLI: Come on Pazlo, lazy louie, get up and help find Marsh!

BUT: It might have been too much for the old guy. That might have been a grabber.

BLI: Commercial sign! The break light is on!

BUT: Hey, that would be another good bit! "Brake" and "break".!

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Break

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SFX: (Darth Vader noises)

BUT: Blinds, put down the bong and get over here!

BLI: Woah! Good almonds.

BUT: Help me pick up Pazlo.  Hmm seems to've gained a few pounds since our last episode.

PAZ: What happened?

BLI: You keeled over like a ferry full of geriatric passengers.

PAZ: I remember, I had this terrible dream that you and Butto were running My show!

BUT: Umm Paz? We are.

PAZ: But what happened?

BLI: Are you mental? I told you you keeled over!

PAZ: No, not that, how did you two side kicks get in charge?

BUT: While you were watching skirts and martinis, we were watching our stock options.

PAZ: That's just wrong, this can't be happening!

SFX: Door opens/shuts

BUT: Who's that?

PAZ: I hope it's a script girl with a new revision, this one bites!

BUT:That won't change the fact that I am número UNO

PAZ:This isn't a card game Butto

BLI:Yahtzee!

PAZ:Shut up Blinds! 

BLI: But it’s Dr. Yahtzee!

BUT:Dr. Yahtzee? I thought he was the Bulgarian cleaning woman?

PAZ:And just how do you know what a Hungarian cleaning woman looks like?

BUT:Not Hungarian, Bulgarian! You know, overweight, smells like garlic & beets, has a mustache. 

PAZ:Beets have mustaches?

BLI:Not the point!

CLEAN: No, not Yahtzee, Yahtchezka, cleaning woman of Bulgaria.

I brought new script. Revision 42 & 2/3.

PAZ: Whew, that was close, I thought we were goners for sure.

SFX: Door crashing open.

COP: FREEZE!  Everybody put your hands in the air.

You, the ugly one in the stupid clothes, stop with the jazz hands or I'll pump you full of lead!

BLI: Party pooper.

Episode 37

Paz (SFX: REV): I sat behind my desk. Behind the same grubby gray desk on another hazy hot July Tuesday...Hey! This the opening from Episode...uh...that one with the, uh...Rainy Day Bomber...NO WAIT! Hallifax! The Hallifax Warehouse Incident? (GETTING EXCITED< LIKE A GAME SHOW CONTESTANT) NO! NO! I GOT IT! Oo!Oo! I Know! ...it was the Ruby Foreshort Case!

(dead silence)

Paz (REV off): What revision do you have, cause I just grabbed this one off the table in the lunch room.

But: I've got Rev3.6. Was there any gespacho dip left?

Paz: What's that, like a watermark? Mine just says Rev3..um.., looks like taco sauce. Mmm. Rev3.1, that does it.

But: I think that's parsley. Right there. That's not a one. Was that from the gespacho dip?

DIR: (SFX: Booth speaker): Get a script person in there! Where's the intern? You two go to scene two, it's set up in studio C.

(SFX:WALKING)

But: Why would we need to use a separate studio for a different scene? This is radio?

Paz: That's the problem with this production company. Who's in charge here?

(SFX: open studio door/enter/close door)

But: That's hardly the point...

(dead silence)

But: That's hardly the point...

(dead silence)

But: I said "That's hardly the point"!

Paz: I was waiting for you to pick up your cue...

But: That was YOUR cue! Don't tell me this scene is screwed up too...

Paz: That's not in my script either.

But: I was speaking off-mic...

Paz: See. I don't have that either. Does your page end with the line "The color of spam, sir."?

But: I wasn't reading from the script!

Paz: I know, we'll both work off the same script (SFX: usual papery noise and --- RIP!)

(SFX: Phone rings) (phone rings once more after Paz answers)

Paz: Pazlo here! (ring) Interns!

(SFX: voice on phone, unintelligible but ridiculous. Ridiculously fast, foreign languages, no pauses while Paz is speaking, screeching high pitch, escalating to noise like kaws)

Paz: Well, our dear old friend Detective Marsh. Retired by now I'd hope. What's that? Van Nuys? Hardly know the guy. Didn't catch what you said there...sounded like "beef to reamo"? "Chiefy reno"? No, sorry.

But: Peachy Keen-o?

Paz: Hello? Marsh? Is this a bad phone connection or a bad sound effect? Where's the intern? Marsh? Hello? (aside) The line's gone dead. Sounded like Marsh was in trouble. What'll we do?

But: Delaware and Kansas, and parts of Alabama.

Paz: What?

But: What? That doesn't make any sense...wait.... (SFX: ruffling paper, etc.) Oh for... you taped the top half of page four to the bottom of page fourteen.

Paz: Oh, I thought that was parsely.

But: I can't find the rest of...what are you wiping your hands with?

Paz: Er...paper towels?

But: All right. I thought someone called for a script girl!

Paz: Script people.

But: What?

Paz: Script people. We're not allowed to call them script girls any more. It's an HR thing.

But: But,..they're ALL GIRLS!

Paz: Not anymore. They're script peoples. Wouldn't want to leave out a gender!

But: Yesh, but I mean they're REALly ALL GIRLS.

Paz: You'll have to stop saying that or I may have to report you.

But: To whom?

Paz: HR Lady.

But: Don't you mean the HR PERSON.

Paz: Of course she's the HR person. Why else would she be called the HR Lady?

But: But shouldn't she be called the HR person?

Paz: She is the HR person. You just don't understand management.