You Ought to Be In Pictures

by McPoodle

Chapter 4

Los Angeles was a much brighter city than Vancouver. Brighter, and louder.

The Hollywood studios were an exclusive neighborhood; if you weren’t a tourist, you were an actor. Black stretch limousines dominated the streets, serving their one purpose of giving a prospective star the perfect entrance. One of these limos was unique however, in being half the length and height of the others.

The driver of this limousine, Trixie Lulamoon, leaned on the horn as yet another limo cut her off. “Hey, Trixie’s driving here!” she exclaimed. When she pulled up to a traffic stop, she looked back at her lone passenger. “So...Trixie might have gotten lost. What’s our first stop again?”

Spike sat on royal purple cushions, wearing a matching bathrobe open at the chest and a pair of round purple sunglasses. He examined his checklist. “DreamWorks,” he said finally. “It should be just around that corner.”

The light turned green; Trixie instead shook her head. “Isn’t DreamWorks in Glendale?” she asked.

The limo behind her started honking.

“The animation studio is, but the film studio is here in Hollywood along with everybody else,” Spike said.

Another horn honk.

Trixie whipped her head out of the exterior window to glare at the driver behind her. “Hey, hold your ponies!” she exclaimed.

She was rear-ended, pushing her car into the intersection.

“You’re paying for that!” she cried, springing out of the car.

The driver’s side door of the normal-sized limo opened, and an 11-foot-tall cartoon gorilla in a chauffeur’s suit emerged.

“On second thought, Trixie graciously yields the right of way to you,” she said, before popping back in her little car and speeding it around the corner and into the DreamWorks lot.

The bored toon security guard looked down at the limo from his post. “State your business,” he drawled in a generic New York accent.

The passenger window rolled down and Spike leaned out, looking as imperious as possible. “I’m here to accept the role of the latest villain in the Kung Fu Panda sequel, Lord Shen.”

“Kung Fu Panda 2. Check!”

“You’re about four months too late, Mister,” the young guard replied. “The part’s already cast. And it was a peacock, not a dragon.”

“What?!” Spike exclaimed indignantly. “Did they even read their sources? The script clearly states that the Lord Shen character invented the cannon in order to take over the world. Everybody knows that it was a dragon who invented the cannon.”

“Dramatic license,” the toon guard said laconically. “And besides, it was a Chinese dragon. You look...kinda Western to me.”

“Hey, that’s racist!” Trixie butted in. “And it’s not like Jack Black’s Chinese.”

The conversation was interrupted by a familiar angry honk—the same gorilla-driven limo from before wanted to get into the studio.

“You’re going to have to turn that car around,” the guard said. “That’s Jack Black in there, none other than the Voice of Po. He’s here to record some ADR.”

“Let that sink in, boys and girls: In 2011 the cartoon character Po was so big and famous that when it was time to record ADR, Jack Black was the one with more free time on his hands.”

“We’re not finished!” Trixie shrieked.

“Yes, we are,” Spike sighed. “The part’s cast, Trixie. Let’s move on to the next studio.”

It took about ten minutes of automotive ballet for the small limo to get off the lot, and the big one to drive in. And lots and lots of inventive toon cursing by both drivers. Skippy the Squirrel watched the whole thing with a bemused smile on his face.

“The nerve of some toons,” he remarked.

“Wait, that’s where he is? He’s barely out of the industry! He said he never wanted to look at another toon for the rest of his life.”

“Look, both of you are stubborn to a fault. I think you should be the one to reach out to him.”

“I’ll...think about it.”

---

Daffy showed up for his screen test at 9 am on the dot. Fluttershy and Angel Bunny were waiting for him.

“I’ve got a rather large menagerie already,” Fluttershy explained. “And the only one allowed to show any character is my wonderful Angel here—it’s in his contract.”

Angel smirked and thumbed his nose at Daffy.

Daffy only knew one toon who liked to do that. A toon that coincidentally Daffy had never seen on days when Fluttershy was filming.

Daffy suppressed his reaction to Fluttershy’s words and Angel’s gesture by force of will. Merely a slight purse of his lips to indicate a redoubling of will.

“So, you’ll just be a background character,” Fluttershy continued. “Is that alright with you, Mr. Duck?”

“I’m here to serve my craft, Madame,” Daffy said with a cultured accent. “If the best way to do that is to sit quietly on the background cell, I will do so gladly. Or...background ‘layer’ I believe it is now?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Computers give me a headache.”

“Oh, you weren’t Drawn for this show, Fluttershy?” Daffy asked.

“No, Rainbow and I were Drawn in 1980, for a forgotten TV special.” She looked around her for a bit at the empty stage, then up at the rafters. “I used to be...a lot bigger. At least I’ve been allowed to keep the same personality in all of my parts.”

“Rather the opposite with me,” Daffy noted sadly. “Same shape, different personalities.”

“You know, if this is supposed to be Clampett’s Daffy, he’s way out of character.”

“You do know that us toons can be serious off camera?”

“So is there anything else you need from me?”

“No,” Fluttershy said. “You’ve got the part. I just needed to make sure that I wasn’t getting the wrong Daffy Duck.” She smiled. “The background artists like sneaking little jokes into their work, and that odd older demographic watching the show seems to like them. You’ll be free to improvise some minor antics in your appearances.” She turned stern. “I trust in your professionalism to keep such antics from upstaging the stars.”

“But of course,” Daffy said with a formal bow.

Fluttershy giggled behind her hoof.

Angel glared, then tapped his mistress’ head a few times with a paw.

“Yes Angel, I know,” Fluttershy said. “Well, I have a brunch appointment to make. You can see yourself out?”

Daffy nodded affably.

The smile dropped as Fluttershy and Angel turned the corner.

“Pudgy...” he hissed maliciously.

---

“What do you mean you’ve already cast Thanos? This is just a cameo!”

“Sorry, kid. Marvel plans pretty far ahead.”

Spike walked away from the casting call for The Avengers and back into his limo. He looked despairingly down at his list, with all of the entries crossed out: Q in Skyfall, The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man, The Lorax, Olaf in Frozen, and now Thanos in The Avengers.

“Check, check, check, checkity-check!”

During this time the car pulled out of Marvel Studios and drove down a few blocks before parking.

Spike looked up as Trixie opened the passenger door and sat down beside him.

“Trixie thinks that maybe you’re going about this all wrong.”

“Yeah?” Spike asked quietly.

“You’re trying to start at the top. How about if you go for a role that isn’t above the title? At least that way you’ll have your foot in the door.”

Spike thought for a moment, then nodded. “That makes sense. What do you have in mind?”

$ $ $

“Here’s a video of some of my work—excuse the poor cinematography.” Spike was in a room with a couple of doubtful stunt coordinators. One of them took the offered DVD-R and put it into a player.

The attached television lit up and began showing scenes of Spike driving a custom car sized to his dimensions. The two humans said nothing for a few minutes as they watched the footage of Spike’s car driving over ramps, climbing up embankments and drifting.

One of the men paused the video in the middle of a loop-de-loop. “Now hold on,” he complained. “That curve’s too tight. This footage must be fake.”

“Gentlemen,” Trixie said from a chair beside Spike. “You forget that this is a half-size, half-weight car. That changes the physics.”

“Hmm...Jack, if we could scale the set to match that car, we’d be able to pull off stunts that otherwise would be completely impossible. Dress him up and film him so he looks like one of the leads.”

Jack nodded in thought.

“So, are you interested?”

“I’ll have a talk with Justin just to be sure, but yeah, I think we can use you.”

“Yes!” Spike said with a fist pump.

“I’ve got one question, though: Aren’t you underage?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Actually, I’m twenty-seven-and-a-half years old. But I don’t drink, I don’t like loud noises and like most toons Drawn in the Twentieth Century, my tastes are probably what you’d call childish. I like stunting because it’s fun, and I’m indestructible.” He produced his driver’s license for proof of the first point.

“Practically indestructible,” warned Trixie.

“I’ve found that that is always a tricky point with humans. Most Twentieth-Century toons are like human children in some ways, and like human adults in others. We want some responsibilities, and we absolutely don’t want others. That’s why Spike has a babysitter and a driver’s license at the same time. And Trixie shows how some toons move past the limitations of their creation, and will themselves into becoming adults by the human definition of the term. I just wish the legislators would finally get around to writing the correct laws to apply to the majority of toons.”

“...Have you gotten down from your soapbox yet?”

“Har, har.”

“Yeah, yeah, practically indestructible,” Spike said dismissively with a wave of a claw. “I haven’t had a part yet where I could show off the driving. Doesn’t fit into the dragon stereotypes.”

Jack looked at the picture on the driver’s license, which didn’t exactly match up with Spike’s current appearance. And then he did some math. “So wait, you’re Rescue at Midnight Castle Spike.”

“Yeah,” Spike said with a small smile as he retrieved the license.

“I loved that original show.”

“Really?” Jack’s boss Spiro asked incredulously.

“Well not the ponies. And not you, Spike—you were written and voiced to be way too annoying. Neither of which I hold against you.”

“Well, you’re not exactly hiring me for my cheerful personality,” Spike joked. “So I guess it was the villains, then?”

“MLP villains were the best. Is there any chance that Tirac and Scorpan will show up in the new series?”

Spike looked darkly at the ground. “I wouldn’t really know about that,” he said.

Jack looked down at the resume, with its clear end date for his time with DHX Productions Vancouver. “Oh, right,” he said. “Well assuming everything goes through, we’ll have a contract out to you by tonight. In the meantime, welcome to the Fast & Furious family!”

---

In the wake of the success of the fictional film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a chain of licensed restaurants sprang up across America staffed by toons, The Ink and Paint Club.

“Please note the word ‘fictional’ above. Everybody always thinks that film was based on real life events for some mad reason. As if the existence of something like Dip could be suppressed if it was a real thing.”

“Who’s on a soapbox now?”

Twilight Sparkle summoned her costars to a private room at the Vancouver Ink and Paint to tell them about the two letters she found taped to her trailer, the first of which was from Spike. All of the pony toons were shocked at hearing the news of his departure, with the exception of Pinkie Pie. She had already faxed a copy of the letter to his Voice, Cathy.

“Now before you start condemning him, let me say this,” Twilight butted in as their voices were beginning to rise. “I think he made the right decision. We’ve all been making fun of him, leaning into his role as the butt of the jokes, and I think he just got tired of never being taken seriously. He told me that when he was hired, he was promised more respect than he got in his earlier series, but we all know that didn’t happen. So, I for one wish him the best.”

Fluttershy tapped the side of her glass with a fork to make sure what she said next would be heard. “I...um...I agree with Twilight. I’m going to miss him—he introduced me to Monty Python, but he had a serious side, too. We had some very interesting talks about the fictional ecology of dragons, and how toon dragons have decided to adopt some of these habits, and reject others, including how they die. Ooh! Twilight, have you been told how the writers are going to handle Spike’s leaving? I hope they don’t just kill his character off.”

“No, I don’t know yet.”

“That’s fine,” said Rainbow Dash. “It’s good that you told us first. That way we’ll be ready when the animation press wants to write a hit piece on Spike and try to ambush us for quotes.”

The others nodded grimly in agreement.

“So, what was the other letter about?” Fluttershy asked.

“Oh, it’s from Daffy Duck. Yes, the Daffy Duck. He’s the one who convinced Spike to make the big step.”

“He’s joining the cast,” Fluttershy added. “In a minor capacity.”

---

In another private room at the Vancouver Ink and Paint Club, Daffy Duck was met by Slappy Squirrel, who slid a manila envelope over to him. She then pulled out a little book full of the notes she made and consulted them frequently while making her explanation.

“I knew I heard the story of Betty Boop and Pudgy before, and I finally figured out where,” Slappy explained in a low voice. She got up, walked over to the door, and yanked it open, expecting an eavesdropping toon to fall down on the other side. When she was absolutely sure they weren’t being spied on, she crept back to her seat and continued. “There was this Eighties toon called The Real Ghostbusters, spun off from the movie. What most people don’t know is that a lot of episodes of the series were based on real supernatural beings and events. Furthermore, the head writer of the series quietly put up a website a decade ago and posted nearly fifty scripts that were never made, and for those he didn’t tweak the names to protect the innocent.

“In the 1920’s, several church groups banded together to protest the effect of immoral films on the youth of America, resulting in the creation of the Hays Code in 1929. By 1934 it was clear that none of the studios was actually obeying the Code and that films were ‘worse’ than ever. A man named Joe Breen decided that Betty Boop cartoons in particular were so corrupting that they would destroy an entire generation of impressionable children, so he summoned a demon lord, Astaroth, to force the world to bow to his morality. Astaroth easily overcame Breen, and then took his form and imposed the Code on Hollywood, knowing that the hypocrisy that this would generate would damn far more souls than the honest sin of the pre-Code era.”

“Doats, why did you decide to include the general public in the audience of this story, out of all of the stories I’ve asked you to tell me? This is the only one with a demon in it!”

“And haven’t you ever wondered where toons came from? You don’t think Gertie sprung to life from the page in 1914 all by herself, did you? Her Artist desperately needed a hit show to get out from under Hearst’s thumb. Desperate enough to, well...”

“Doats, that gives me all kinds of thoughts I’d really rather not be thinking right now.”

“As a shapeshifter, Astaroth took a variety of forms in order to enforce the Code, including Pudgy and Jiminy Cricket. His favorite scheme is to approach individuals, usually female toons, afraid of their own immorality or power, and promise to lock those negative traits away. What actually happens, however, is that the buried personality trait grows and grows over the years, leading to a catastrophic explosion.”

Having finished her report, Slappy looked up into the stunned expression of Daffy Duck. “What have I gotten myself into?” he asked. “So, I seriously have to exorcise a demon of Hell to protect my part?”

“Yes,” said Dodo, who was suddenly in the seat next to Daffy.

“Don’t do that!” Daffy exclaimed.

“Oh, come on, you’ve got to let me have some fun!” Dodo replied.

Slappy frowned. “Dodo, am I going to find an episode about you in that archive if I keep on digging?”

“Not anymore you won’t,” Dodo said flippantly.

Slappy threw up her arms in the air. “So, who’s side are you on?” she asked.

“The fun side, of course—silly humans with their insistence that all higher powers have to be either absolute evil or absolute good. Even Astaroth does nice things when he’s bored enough.”

“You know, I haven’t really thought about the implications of that little admission of yours, Doats. Should I be leaving little ink-smudge sacrifices to you in the morning? Were you the one who waved your magic wand over Gertie the Dinosaur, and are you now slumming among your creations just for kicks, pretending to be one in order to ‘pass’? Do you know how much this is going to change our relationship in the—”

“The readers really don’t need to hear about what goes on in...well, you know.”

“Ha! My little prude.”

“Anyway, defeating a demon is easy, especially if a toon does it,” I...err, Dodo continued. “I’ll start teaching you the ceremony tonight. It’ll only take you...a couple of months to master.”

“Oh, is that all?” Daffy asked sarcastically. “And until then I have to pretend that I don’t know the blood-curdling truth. To either one of his current personas.”

Dodo raised a suddenly summoned eyebrow. “You’re telling me the bluff champion of the Black and White Society isn’t capable of a little lying by omission?”

Daffy sighed. “Who knew I’d actually stumble on an altruistic reason for stealing a part? So would that ceremony work on you?” He had been associating with the strange “toon” for decades and had long since figured out that Dodo was more than it appeared to be.

“Say it together with me, boys and girls,” Dodo said cheekily. “Not anymore it won’t.”

---

After his fantastic work for the Fast & Furious franchise—he wasn’t sure if his scenes would end up in Fast Five coming out later that year or the inevitable sixth film whenever that was made—Spike now had a solid demo reel to get further parts. He got a bit part in Pixar’s Monsters University as an out-of-control racecar fanatic, but his part ended up on the cutting room floor and the troubled film would not even be released for another two years. And Pixar got him to Disney.

“I’m being completely honest when I say: I’m a huge fan of your work,” Spike told the director he was auditioning for. “Although the monster movies gave me nightmares. But I really loved Spider-Man.”

Sam grinned indulgently. “What part are you applying for, Spike?”

“Whatever you’ve got, to be honest. Oz has all kinds of crazy creatures in it, so whatever part you need, I can play it.”

“Hmm...” Sam pondered. He looked over for a moment at Trixie and frowned. “Don’t I know you?”

“I believe you were offering a part to my charge, not to Trixie.”

“Would you mind being turned into a winged monkey?” Sam asked Spike, but his eyes were still on the powder blue pony.

“Did you say ‘wings’?” Spike asked eagerly. “Yes, absolutely yes.” He turned and enthusiastically hugged Trixie, who squealed in happiness.

“I do remember you!” Sam said triumphantly, pointing at Trixie. “Mary Lynn and the Distrustful Witch, 1981. My cousin was a huge fan of the series, and of your character in particular. I gave her a hand-made plush of Trixie the Witch on her eighth birthday.”

The pony blushed. “Trixie is honored that you remembered Trixie’s little foray into show business. Trixie retired immediately afterwards, to go into child care.”

“You must have gotten a part since then,” Sam said, gesturing at her. “You were a short little blue witch originally.”

“Yes, well Spike here talked Trixie into stepping into a role in Friendship Is Magic when Broom—, err, the original actress, asked for too much money when she found out she was going to be redrawn as a pony. Trixie was glad of the opportunity to re-unite with her former costars. My original Voice Kathy was still around to renew it with Trixie’s same distinctive way of speaking, and the character design is quite similar.” She looked down at herself. “Trixie’s really come to like it.”

Sam furrowed his brow. “‘Friendship Is Magic’... That’s that brony show, right? I didn’t know it had any connection to Mary Lynn.”

“Rainbow Dash is Mary Lynn,” Spike explained. “Has the same hair and nearly the same voice. And Fluttershy’s from the first special.”

“Mary Lynn and the Reluctant Beast?”

“Yes.”

“You’re probably thinking that Mary Lynn is a made up series, like Rainbow Brite. To which I will refer you to Fluttershy’s statement in Chapter 3: it was a very obscure series.”

Sam picked up his laptop, brought up a web browser, and started looking for an image of “Fluttershy”. “Didn’t she marry that one rock star?” he asked. “The one that turned out was—”

“She got a divorce,” Trixie said with disgust. “On the grounds of unendurable cruelty. He had figured out that toons can take a lot more abuse than human women.”

“Dodo. Dodo. You didn’t need to go there. Look, the story’s rating just went from ‘General’ to ‘Teen’ with that one sentence!”

“The reader deserves to know more about Fluttershy’s off-camera persona.”

“Oh,” Sam said quietly. “It’s a wonder she stayed in the business.”

“She found a way to cope, somehow. And that ‘somehow’ involved non-stop acting. She’s had dozens of parts over the decades, dozens of forms. None of them like how she was then.”

Spike leaned over to look at the web browser’s results. “Ignore all of those,” Spike said flatly, reaching forward to slide his claw on the touch pad and bring up an official image of the character.

“Well...she’s the same color. And the name’s a dead giveaway. But otherwise, I don’t really see a connection. I suppose that was the point.”

“Watch an episode or two,” Trixie said. “You’ll see it then.”

“I’ll look for your episode,” Sam said. “What’s your character’s name?”

“Trixie. The Great and Powerful.”

Sam and Trixie laughed.

“You know, I’d give you the lead role right here and now if I could get away with it,” Sam said, “But you don’t cross both the Walt Disney Company and the L. Frank Baum estate lightly.”

---

Several months passed, and filming finally began on the first of the remaining episodes of Season Two: “Lesson Zero”. The episode dealt with the fallout of Discord’s mind-control tricks on the ponies, although as a kid’s show it couldn’t actually come out and say that. So instead, Twilight Sparkle had a mental breakdown for no other reason than because Spike wasn’t there to talk her down from her monthly freak-outs. The reason given for Spike’s absence was because Twilight’s boss the Princess had tracked down Spike’s long-lost parents. Daffy had gotten to have a little background gag: He was flying across the sky in each of the cutaway segments, and with the third one he started crashing into things, more and more obviously and painfully, as symbolism of Twilight’s decaying sanity.

At one point Twilight stopped the filming, having some trouble with how to play her character’s increasingly unhinged behavior. The director allowed her to go over to Rob’s office. There she used the videophone to dial up Tara, her Voice. Tara had had lots of experience voicing insane characters—

“Personally, I don’t think Tara knows how to Voice a completely sane character.”

“Are there any completely sane characters?”

—So she was able to give Twilight lots of tips on how to develop her own brand of crazy. Twilight returned to her part with increased self-confidence, and a very convincing display of mounting mania.

A primary theme of the episode was the harm caused by not taking your friends’ crazy beliefs seriously. In between takes, the girls agreed that this was the writer Meghan’s response to their own guilt in not recognizing Spike’s pain earlier.

“So, what, do the writers spy on the toons? I’m asking because the Animaniacs writers knew everything.”

“They kind of just...know these things. It’s similar to the poss—”

“We don’t talk about the ‘P’ word.”

During the lunch break, Fluttershy retreated to her trailer with Angel, as she usually did. She was interrupted by a firm knocking on the door. She opened it to look out at her two visitors. “Yes?” she asked uncertainly. Angel, from his usual position on her right shoulder, looked at first cruelly at Daffy, and then worried at Betty. Especially since she was wearing her dress from the old days.

“Fluttershy, this is an intervention,” Daffy said rather firmly. “That creature is not who he says he is.”

“He’s a demon,” said Fluttershy, walking down to the dusty ground.

“He’s a—oh, you know.”

“He...” Fluttershy sneezed—in an adorable manner—as some dust got up her nose. “He was completely honest with me. I had a temper problem, and Astaroth helped me to deal with it. He said that demons aren’t all bad, and they like to do ‘meaningless acts of kindness’ from time to time to assuage their guilt.”

“Well, that’s how it starts,” Betty said. “But it soon became a lie.”

“It was never a lie,” Angel said in a cultured voice, hopping down to stand on his hind paws between the pair. “You were consumed by guilt as all the humans you partied with dropped dead from overdoses and excess, while you remained just as beautiful as when you were drawn. You told me you felt like a living Picture of Dorian Gray. You were glad to be changed.”

“Yes...in 1934,” Betty admitted with reluctance. “But you’ve kept me trapped as the perfect little housewife—without a spouse—for sixty-seven years! I’ve tried to become myself again, or at least find a middle ground of some kind, but you’ve talked me down. Over and over again. And it wasn’t just words. You controlled my mind, Astaroth. Used me to talk other frightened women into surrendering to you. Including you, Fluttershy.”

“I believe your time on this world is over,” Daffy told the little demon. “And I’m prepared to fight for these two women. With these two women, if they’ll accept that help.”

“I’m finished with you,” Betty declared to the bunny.

Fluttershy thought. “How about a trial separation?” she offered. “Just to see what I’m like without you.”

Astaroth made a cold chuckle. “I don’t negotiate with toons.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Then what was our agreement?”

“Me taking over your mind by means of a disguised verbal spell,” Angel said baldly. “The same applies to you, Toots.” He snapped his paw, and Betty’s dress reverted to the safe version.

Daffy reached over to the switch of a large fan that was standing next to him and turned it on. This blew away the layer of dust to reveal the pentagram underneath, a pentagram that completely enclosed Astaroth.

Fluttershy, seeing this, stepped back so she was no longer inside the pentagram.

“I’ve got a hex, and I know how to use it,” Daffy bragged. He made a gesture to activate the runes.

There was a flash, and the demon was revealed in his true form, resembling a human man with feathered wings and wearing a crown. He looked down at himself with some surprise. “Well,” he said with only a hint of surprise. “What do you know? Alright. You’ve got me. To be honest, the fun ended in the Sixties. Girls? I formally release you from my control. Have fun with that.” He looked Daffy right in the eyes. “I’ll be back,” he vowed.

Daffy made a complex gesture with his arms. Red smoke started to rise inside the pentagram but did not cross the boundary formed by its outline. “Now git!” he commanded.

The smoke cleared, and the demon was nowhere to be seen.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Fluttershy said to Daffy. “However can I repay you?”

“Well, since he isn’t around to enforce that ‘main supporting character clause’ anymore...”

$ $ $

The first scene after lunch involved Fluttershy wrestling a bear, cheered on by Daffy. The cast and crew watching noticed that she really got into the part, to a degree that frightened poor Harry.

Comments

[TrainDude90S]

Looks like T.W. & friends have finally seen the folly of their treatment towards Spike.