Winona was enjoying another day resting on applejack's lap while she rocked back and forth on her lap, knitting a sweater. Big Mac, on the other hoof, was tapping his toes against his chair's arm rests impatiently. He kept checking the grandfather clock for the time and looking at the entrance door, grumbling in response.
"Come on..." he growled angrily.
The dog tilted her head in confusion until someone knocked at the door and Big Mac's mood flipped completely. He hurried to the door as best as his old bones could, exchanged words with whoever was on the other side, then pulled in an oversized, almost flat cardboard.
"What's that?" AJ asked.
Mac tapped the box with his hoof. "It's a free, flat screen tv I won in the local lottery." He squeed in excitement. "It even comes with free satellite." He raised his hooves into the air in celebration. "Over three hundred channels! And they're all mine!" He walked towards the stairs and took a step before speaking again. "I'm going to grab me toolbox and install it. Shouldn't be hard."
"Alright. I'll prepare some tea," Applejack said.
She put Winona on the ground and waddled towards the kitchen, her smile everpresent on her face. As for Winona, she looked at the box with curiosity. There was patting of the giant contraption, then the dog placed her ear on the box.
"Watch meeeeee..." a hushed voice strained.
The dog screamed loudly and rushed to the kitchen to hide beneath AJ's dress. Her fears did not meet fruition when the giant black rectangle was mounted on the wall and doing nothing. Big Mac was amusing himself with fifteen, table-sized remotes, after chucking his old tv in front of the house, proclaiming how he didn't need that 'old thing' anymore.
"Ha ha! Look at all these, Applejack!" he cheered.
"Oh my." AJ waddled to her chair with a teacup in hoof. "That's quite a lot of remotes, no?" she asked. "Well, let's just see what is on there."
Big Mac stomped on one remote, turning the tv on to another one of Big Mac's fond movies depicting a shoddy cardboard robot puppet descending from an equally poorly made ufo dangling on a visible string.
"Oooo!" He turned to AJ and waved his remote at the tv. "Look! It's in color!"
AJ ahh'd as well. "That's pretty. All these fancy new machines are so much fun." She giggled.
"She says it's fun, but there's something wrong with that thing, or my name isn't Samuel Something Something Esquire...the Third..." Winona coughed. "And it isn't."
Day in and day out Big Mac watched the tv, gradually drying out like a sponge, and AJ wasn't liking it. While Winona gnawed on a bone next to the kitchen entrance, Big Mac kept watching his tv, enjoying the color quite a bit. The dog was interrupted from her mastication by several streaks of color flashing about the screen like the contrails of a jet. She gave it no heed until a face and two hooves pressed against the screen.
Winona stopped gnawing and stared at it staring at Big Mac. Its coat was a drab cyan blue, and its teeth, accentuate by an open-mouth smile, were crooked and sharp. It had bags under its black, hollow eyes, and its mane was thin and nonexistent. Its eyes moved towards Winona, and with some effort, it started to speak.
"Hey, dog. Move his chair closer," it wheezed. It took in several deep breaths. "I can't reach him."
Winona made a high-pitched screech that shattered her like glass onto the floor.
AJ stomped forward, hooves on her hips and a scowl on her face. "Big Mac," she said. "Big Mac!" The stallion did not respond and flipped through the channels instead. AJ, however, would not let herself be defeated. She stepped in front of the tv, upsetting the stallion. "You listen here, mister. You've been loafing about that couch for days now! You haven't even done your chores." She gestured in the direction of the chicken coop. "The chicken coop is so dirty that they've been fighting over the clean spots."
Winona took her bone in her mouth and climbed a drawer to look outside the window. There were two armies of chickens; One sporting blue with kilts and claymores, and the other sporting red with chain mail and longswords.
"What the," Winona stuttered. She fled from the window when an egg exploded against it and hid behind Big Mac's chair.
While Big Mac continued to try to move AJ with the remote, Winona took the opportunity to try and warn AJ but jumping in front of her. She turned into a grim reaper smashing a remote over Big Mac's head, then a toy soldier walking haphazardly, and then a monster made up of color bars from a tv alert. Unfortunately for her, AJ did not react. That is, until Big Mac pressed the AV button on his remote. The mare was frozen in a distorted snow effect, and the colorful being grabbed her and pulled her into the tv.
Winona's eyes drained of color, becoming transparent orbs. She reached about with her arms until she found the tv and hopped in. The dog screamed the whole way she was falling down, and her screams kept going until she received a ball of snow in the mouth.
"What's going on?"
She was in a ski suit and sliding down a mountainside. The dog was startled by the big-headed, suave-haired presenter appear right next to her whilst talking to the camera.
"Folks, you've heard of sports. You've heard of EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEME sports!" he bellowed. "But have you heard of...HYPER EXTREME SPORTS?!" He presented the dog with a hoof. "This brave dog is going down a one hundred and TWENTY degree slope while an avalanche is falling the whole way down and BOMBS are being dropped next to her!" He and the camerapony grabbed a ladder dangling from a helicopter and flew off to safety. "Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme!"
Winona screamed so loud that she split the avalanche in half. Mac, however, wasn't liking the show. "Bah! Stupid dog ruining tv."
Winona now found herself on Circle of Riches, surrounded by two other contestants. The host was wearing a black tuxedo and sporting teeth three times the size of his head.
"Contestant number two, for two hundred thousand smackaroos, what is the answer to this question? I'll remind you that the subject is Color Position in Light."
Winona thought for a moment then answered. "Roody rar roo raroora rodwy rood reedy rad."
The host's blazing smile dimmed a little, but the board lit up with the answer, prompting exasperation from the other two contestants.
"Well I'll be. That was the right answer!"
Big Mac yelled even louder. "Now he's ruining the contest shows!"
Finally, Winona was on the channel where AJ was trapped to, but she was stuck in a wall of paint, slowly being drained of her colors. The weird creature was wringing its spindly hooves together while AJ screamed for help and grinned.
"Hm?" it noticed the dog and floated towards her. "How did you get in here?" She shook her head. "No matter. The longer she's here, the stronger I get, and then I'll be free!" She turned back to Winona. "What do you think about THAT, do...Dog?"
She looked around and spotted Winona trying to pull AJ free from her confines. The creature angrily swatted the dog away with her ghostly tail, smashing her against the tv screen.
"Aaah. Now THIS is quality entertainment," Mac said.
Winona forced a paw through the screen and pressed the buttons at the top of the tv, changing the channel.
"HEY!" Mac protested.
Winona and the creature found themselves in monoplanes above a countryside during a battle where large explosions of black smog happened all about. Winona shrugged and carried on.
"Ahhhhh! Not more sky!" the creature cursed.
She chased after Winona in her multicolored monoplane and started shooting at the dog. he two started pursuing each other...or rather, Winona's constant fleeing coincidentally got her behind the creature on multiple occasions.
Winona chuckled to herself. "I wasn't expecting a dogfight." She smiled with big teeth at the tv screen.
Mac frowned and pressed hard against the remote. The creature and dog were now in a calm room playing chess, and while the monster looked pensively at the board, Winona moved a pawn.
"Checkmate," she stated.
The creature, appalled and horrified, looked at the board then flipped it and bashed Winona several times over the head.
"You can't make me stay here!" she stated whilst bashing Winona over the head.
Mac changed the channel again, throwing the two into a demolition derby. Winona was in a dinky little car while giant monsters smashed against each other. She screamed, turning her head into an engine belching flames from her ears, smoke from her mouth, and making her eyes into speed indicators. She sped around the circular dome, trying her best to avoid all the other cars. One such car; a 4x4, missed Winona, slid along the mud, and smashed again the wall. A pale purple mare with a slicked back, cloudy mane wearing sunglasses shook her hoof at the dog.
"Watch where yer goin', ya foo'!"
She was sandwiched by two other cars. Two massive doors opened up behind Winona's car, allowing a monster truck easily three stories tall to slide in.
"Now THIS is a car!" the creature cheered.
Winona's screams matched the tone of the beastly machine's engine revving up. She fled as fast as she could while the creature crushed everything in her path. Eventually, though, Winona was hit from the front by a truck and sent flying towards the window of monster truck, scaring the two, but Big Mac's fatigue caught up to him. He had fallen asleep and dropped the remote, causing it to fall in its buttons and change the channel back to the empty wastes. While the creature fell backwards, Winona was jettisoned towards AJ's trap, destroying the thing with a bit of 'brain power' and freeing the dog's loving owner. The creature screamed in anger while Winona rose up from the colorful muck and laughed in response with many of her teeth flopping out.
"Now I'll never get out!" the creature complained.
"Well, it's not by kidnapping ponies that you'll get out here," AJ scolded.
The creature pursed her lips and looked away. "Technically, that's why I kidnapped you..."
"Why do you want to leave this place."
The creature started crying openly. "I was trapped in here after an accident with flight. I've been stuck in that horrible channel, repeating my mistake over and over again." She began to wail. "I want out! I've been trapped in here for so long, and they use my colors to bring life to this stupid rectangle!" She flopped to the ground and put her face in her hands. "I can't take it anymore."
AJ took pity on the creature while Winona reinserted her teeth. "Winona," she started. "Why don't you help the dearie out? Maybe there's some kind of show you could put her in?" She shrugged.
Winona pondered a while, then an idea came to mind. She walked to the creature and gestured multiple times to her.
"You want to get out? Why?" Winona shared her plan further. "Hmmm. I don't know if it'll work, but I never tried it." She floated towards AJ and grabbed her. "Try something funny and I'll drain her, but if you actually manage to help with that, then she'll be saved as well."
Winona nodded. The creature grabbed her and smashed her through the tv screen and into the living room. Quickly, the dog rushed into the attic, fumbled through the boxes, and pulled out a large camera and some cable. She rushed down the stairs, attached the cable to the tv, then started recording the dry wastes outside.
"Leaving me to hang? Well...okay..." the computer lamented.
Winona waited impatiently after changing the tv output, then she saw both AJ and the creature flicker into existence. The creature looked around, but still frowning.
"Yeah, that's nice, but we're still stuck in that tv."
Winona stepped in front of the tv, pulled out a giant mallet, then smashed the device with it. She made sure it was properly destroyed when it fell onto the floor with a few more good smacks. Big Mac was still sleeping, so Winona shrugged and carried on. The creature and AJ were still in the real world, allowing Winona to cheer and jump into AJ's arms with a happy smile.
"I'm free. I'm free!" the creature cheered. She swirled around in the air and hugged both AJ and Winona. "Thank you SO much. I've been stuck in there for so long that I guess I..." She rubbed the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. "I just lost my temper."
She waved them good bye and flew off into the distance, creating a melting rainbow trail behind her. AJ and Winona looked at it in awe.
"See, Winona? Everypony can be helped if you try hard enough."
"My tv!" Big Mac shouted.
"You'll have to get Mac's old tv back as well," she sighed.