You Ought to Be In Pictures

by McPoodle

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Canada...

...There was a wonderful animation company called DHX Studios. They put themselves in Vancouver, unlike Hollywood like most of the other animation studios, because they wanted to bring Canadian magic into all of their creations.

“I thought they did it for the tax break.”

“Hey, are you telling this story, or am I?”

“All right. Carry on, MacDuff.”

Now one of the things that made DHX stand out was a healthy respect for the old theatrical cartoons. In fact, DHX’s (ssss....) cartoon collection—called the “research library” whenever accountants got involved—was one of the biggest collections of pre-WWII cartoons in the world, outside of the obvious suspects like Warner Bros., Walt Disney and Jerry Beck.

It was Saturday afternoon at that “Research Library”, which meant that an official meeting of the Black & White Society was in session. The big table had been resized for toons and turned into a poker table. A cloud of gray cartoon smoke hung over the table—because hey, it’s a poker game in a cartoon. The cloud was refreshed from time to time by puffs from Popeye the Sailor’s pipe anytime he lost a hand to Daffy Duck, which was nearly constantly now—poor guy. Musical accompaniment was provided by Horace Horsecollar on an upright piano, which was slightly off-key. He was playing a cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.

“Here, let me click that link. And...there—background music!”

“Wait, what did you just do? And where are we, anyway?”

“We’re in a book! It’s this collection of words that tell a story without pictures, invented in the dim caveman days of humanity!”

“I know what a book is! I’m just not used to being inside one. I didn’t get adapted to other media that often. What happens if I

Fh450df-wh5Gsdftrr234!

“Hey, stop that! Now, where was I...”

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, causing the music to stop with a suspicious record-scratch sound, and all eyes to look suspiciously at the door.

...Suspicious!

On the other side of that door, the gray and white toon squirrel stood nervously, her little flower-topped hat in her hands. She was—

“Hey, that’s me! Why are you bothering to describe what I look like?”

“Oh, well I’m not just telling this story to you, I’m also telling it to them.”

“What do you mean by...hey, when did you folks show up?”

“Ahem...”

She was tall—for a toon.

“And I was not nervous. Let me state that for the record. I was cool as a cucumber.”

“... Anyway—”

The door opened suddenly, and at first the toon squirrel saw nobody there. But then she looked down and saw a little cartoon toddler with pale white skin, a long gray shirt that went to his knees, and a pair of formless white shoes. His pale blonde hair ended with a large cowlick at the front of his head, and he had his arms crossed. “Well, what do ya want?” he asked in the high-pitched voice of a petulant child.

“You don’t like him either, do you?”

“They’re going to stop reading if you keep interrupting.”

“Fine, fine...”

“I, uh, was wondering if I could hang out with you guys for a day,” the squirrel said with a generic New York accent.

The boy gave her a critical eye for a few seconds. “You’re not a Thirties Toon,” he said judgmentally.

“No, Nineties,” she said. “But I’m a real big fan.” After a few more awkward moments she added, “And I’m practically black and white already” as a joke.

“Aw lighten up guys,” a voice said from the back of the room. An odd little cartoon stepped up behind the boy, a sort of bird with a head like a stubby pencil, a ring around its long stick of a neck, two big feet that stuck sideways out of its little shaggy body with tiny legs, and a tiny umbrella that sprouted out of the back of its head.

“That’s you. Why don’t you just say that it’s you?”

“Because I don’t feel like writing a first-person story today.”

“Gogo!” the squirrel exclaimed in recognition.

“Eh, just Dodo is good,” the bird said. “Slappy’s alright,” it explained to the others. “She’s got Thirties in her backstory.”

“OK, I’m sorry, but I really have to interrupt here. What was up with Gogo? I thought he was, like your son or something.”

“WB said they only wanted ‘next-generation characters’ for the Tiny Toons main cast. I didn’t want to be no stuffy professor, so I chibi’d myself and said I was my own bud. Not my son.”

“Wait...’bud’. Like an amoeba?”

“Does that gross you out?”

“No actually I’m picturing a tiny you popping out of your head, and it looks adorable. Uh...that’s it. You can get back to the story.”

The boy jumped up on top of Dodo’s head to look Slappy in the eye. “Say my name,” he challenged her. “You can’t get in here unless you know who I am.”

“Oh, oh! I do know you,” Slappy insisted, while racking her brain. “It’s not WB, MGM or Fleischer/Famous, so...it’s...ah...Vonzy!”

“Nope! You didn’t get it. Goodbye!” And with that, the boy tried to slam the door shut, only to be stopped by Dodo’s beak getting in the way.

“You’re Scappy’s little brother!” Slappy exclaimed from behind the partially closed door. “And...and...ooh! It’s Oopy.”

With a roll of his eyes, Oopy re-opened the door. “OK, fine,” he said, opening the door fully. “Doats, if you’d do the honors...”

Dodo, suddenly holding a big cigar with a hand attached to an arm it didn’t have before, blew a big puff of gray smoke right at Slappy. When it had passed, Slappy’s hat and other accessories had gone monochrome, along with her formerly blue eyes. She was otherwise the same character as before. The bird then suddenly extended its neck to cause Oopy to be launched back into his chair.

The chair was in fact a booster on top of a booster on top of an ordinary chair, because he was so short. After landing, he stood up and faced the pair. “Keep her under control, Doat! I don’t want any interruptions on this next hand—I’m going to win this one for sure!”

“You keep telling yourself that!” Dodo teased, then looked back at Slappy before leading her towards a little table at the back of the room as the music and card playing resumed. “Come on,” it said, “We’ve got plenty of time to talk. I’m supposed to take Daffy’s place if he ever runs out of chips or stops wanting to play. Which is not going to happen.”

Horace started playing a smooth cover of “Sing, Sing, Sing”. In a darkened corner of the room Slappy saw a nightmarish figure primarily composed of open safety pins—The Pincushion Man, a sour expression on his face and nursing a whiskey sour. Like Slappy, he had had his colors drained before being admitted. Slappy looked away with a shudder. “Um, thanks for not reverting the model with that smoke trick, Dodo,” Slappy said as she sat down. “I never played the Slap-Happy version of me enough times to identify with it.”

Dodo laughed. “Slappy, you need to learn to be a lot more flexible. Horace over there is never on-model, and most of us have had so many writers and re-designs over the years that who and what we are is a matter of multiple choice.”

“Wait a second! Toons can’t switch to an entirely new model by themselves! So where did Gogo come from?”

“...What if I said that I knew a guy?”

“You knew a guy.”

“Yeah.”

“A back-alley Artist.”

“They exist!”

“...Fine.”

“So how’s life treating you these days, Slappy?”

Slappy opened her mouth for a moment, then closed it. “It was going to lay the sob-fest on you, but seeing these guys makes me realize I’m full of hooey. It’s 2011, a decade and a half since my show was cancelled, and I don’t get recognized on the streets most days. The letters worth replying to have completely dried up. And, well...I’ve always felt like the fifth wheel around Yakko and company.”

“Do you really need to include that in a story that they are reading? It’s not going to help on the day if and when Animaniacs gets rebooted.”

“Well why else were you in Vancouver? The readers want to know!”

“...”

“That leaves me with a lot of free time and thanks to DVDs I finally get to watch all of the cartoons I was supposed to be based on.”

“Well it’s good to see you,” said Dodo. “How’s Skippy?”

Slappy sulked. “We don’t talk about Skippy.”

“And you included this part because...?”

“There’s a small chance that they includes Skippy. Toons can read too, you know.”

“Nice rainbow you just summoned over your head.”

Dodo winced. “Right. I forgot. Anyway, it’s not that bad for us gray folk—people watch our stuff on DVD too, so we have our share of fans. They’re...kind of crazy, and not the Thirties kind of crazy.” With a mysterious smile it added, “Besides, some of us find ways to get by.”

“Ooh, I’m really feeling it now!” Daffy exclaimed from the other end of the room as he laid down his cards. “Read ‘em and weep!”

“Well blow me down!”

A chorus of groans could be heard from Popeye, Oopy and Flip the Frog, the other three players at the table.

Slappy frowned as she got a good look at Daffy. She was about to say something, when she was interrupted.

“Can I get you two anything? Perhaps a ginger ale?”

Slappy looked over at the new toon, and then her eyes went wide. “Betty Boop!”

“You know, you’re really writing me out of character.”

“Yeah, I know...you were ‘cool’ the whole time. But admit it—that was what you were actually feeling.”

“...”

Betty smiled demurely. “Hm, yes,” she said. “Pudgy and I are taking care of the food and drinks today. Non-alcoholic if at all possible.” She looked over at the poker table and frowned. “I wish that Popeye wouldn’t bring his pipe to these affairs. Smoking is a nasty habit.” Betty’s attire was transformed from a short, low-cut cigarette dress into a long and demure housewife’s dress. Even her distinctive earrings were gone.

There was an approving “yip” from Pudgy, an overly-cute little white dog with a black spot on his back.

Slappy’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“Two ginger ales would be fine,” said Dodo. It waited until Betty was out of hearing to close Slappy’s mouth for her.

“What happened to her?” Slappy asked in a whisper.

Dodo smiled sadly. “It’s like I said: we toons are multiple-choice. Nobody remembers Betty from the late-30’s, after the Hays Code came down on her.”

“I...um, does she prefer to be this way?”

Dodo pursed its beak, watching as Betty prepared some miniature sandwiches for the poker players out of white bread, slicing off the crusts. Pudgy was keeping a close eye on her, yipping happily every once in a while. “I’m not sure,” the bird toon finally said. “I suspect that Pudgy is somehow making her this way. He wasn’t in the swinger era cartoons. I’ve tried to talk to her about it and...well at the end of the day it’s Betty’s choice. She could easily assert herself if she wanted to.”

“Wait, did you say ‘Pudgy’?” Slappy asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” said Dodo. “Why? Does the name ring any bells?”

“Let me get back to you on that. So Betty Boop, the swinging symbol of an era, has domesticated herself?” Slappy sighed in resignation, and then looked over to Daffy, who was woo-hoo-ing as he collected yet another jackpot of chips from the other players. “So I guess it’s the same way with Daffy over there? He’s way more famous for his post-War color cartoons...”

“Where he’s Chuck Jones’ negative example,” said Dodo sourly. “Always losing so Bugs Bunny can win.”

“So this is Bob Clampett’s version,” Slappy said.

“I’m beginning to suspect that they are a bunch of crazy theatrical cartoon collectors.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Dodo nodded. “And Popeye’s the Fleischer version. He told me he liked his dialog more back then, back when every fifth cartoon was about something other than decking Bluto for stealing Olive Oyl. As opposed to Famous, when zero percent of the cartoons were non-pounding, and a third were cringe-fests.”

Betty came back with a couple of ginger ales and some little sandwiches. “I brought you some cucumber sandwiches. You looked a little peckish.”

“It’s how I’m drawn,” Slappy said quietly, as Betty picked up a bigger platter and walked over to the poker table.

Betty coughed politely a couple of times, both because of the smoke and to get the players’ attention. She waved her tiny little hand with the weird pointy fingers (because animators couldn’t draw realistic human hands back then) and cleared away some of the cloud. “Soup’s on!” she said brightly.

Flip frowned. “I don’t see no soup,” he said in his deep baritone.

“It’s an esspression,” Popeye explained, picking up the plate of sandwiches with his enormous hands.

Oopy just walked across the table to pass out the drinks.

Daffy grabbed a tall bottle of Jack Daniels. “And to the victor goes the spoils!” he exclaimed. He ripped off the top like it was a cork and threw the bottle back.

Betty snatched the bottle out of his hand. “That is not for you!” she shouted, easily the loudest thing she had said all day. The amber liquid which had already poured out of the bottle remained suspended in mid-air, as shocked as every other toon at Betty’s outburst.

Daffy stretched up in order to get at the suspended whiskey. Betty glared at it. The floating puddle winced and slunked back into the bottle.

(I will leave it to your imagination to picture how that would actually look, given that the liquid never manifested a face or formed a recognizable figure.)

“Aww...” Daffy pouted in defeat.

From atop Betty’s left shoulder—

“Wait, which side is the shoulder-devil usually on?”

“The right shoulder.”

“OK then...”

From atop Betty’s right shoulder, a smirking Pudgy thumbed its nose at Daffy, just before Betty turned away.

“Why that little...!” Daffy lunged forward to tackle the little dog but was pulled back by his fellow players.

Not noticing the altercation at the poker table, Betty sighed as she made her way to the far table. The Jack Daniels was for the Pincushion Man—he had a lot of sins he needed to forget.

Slappy picked up the little plate with the sandwich and inspected it. “Of course it has a doily,” she remarked. “Does anybody actually eat cucumber sandwiches?”

She looked over to see that Dodo was looking at the door, its eyes unfocused. “Dodo?”

Dodo suddenly looked at her. “I’m sorry, Slappy, but it’s my turn at the game. Try and entertain yourself while I’m gone. Like, you could talk to Horace—everybody keeps pretending he doesn’t exist. Including the Walt Disney Company.”

As Slappy watched, Dodo waddled over to the game table and tapped Daffy’s shoulder. It whispered something into Daffy’s ear.

Daffy stared intently at the door, and perhaps through it. Then he put a big fake smile on his bill. “Sorry fellers, but I’m gettin’ out while the gettin’ is good! Don’t treat them too rough, Doats.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, D,” Dodo said, clambering into the chair that Daffy had just vacated. It picked up the deck of cards and shuffled it chaotically, the fifty-two cards seeming to multiply into the hundreds as it manipulated and tossed the deck from hand to hand. “Alright so! The game’s seven-card stud, threes are wild, and jokers are threes! The odd-numbered hearts are ten higher than their face values and also count as diamonds, but only in full house hands. And furthermore...”

The others groaned at the mess of new rules. “I’m out!” Popeye cried. “Ready to step in, Pinny?”

The Pincushion Man slammed down the bottle he had been drinking from with a really creepy smile, and strode over to the table, sitting down in Popeye’s seat. “All right boys! Let’s really get this game started!” he exclaimed in a semi-metallic voice. Popeye stuck his pipe into Pinny’s mouth, so he could keep up the smoke cloud—you couldn’t have a poker game in a cartoon without a smoke cloud overhead! I don’t make the rules, folks.

“Has anybody seen Pudgy?” Betty asked, leading the others in a search of the room.

Daffy had stepped out of the room during all of this, completely unnoticed.