Subject: FanFic: Carl Macek Dickens Parody (really!) Okay, this is sort of weird. I wrote this back in December, then decided I was getting too preachy, lost interest and forgot about it until last week when I was cleaning out my hard drive. I thought some people might get some laughs out of it, so I decided to post it, even though it's out of season. It doesn't have an ending, so I hereby challenge someone on the net to write the next part! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A CHRISTMAS CARL by Charles Dikkens (the well-known Dutch author) translated by Ryan Mathews It was Christmas Eve, and Carl Macek was getting ready for bed. It had been a long, but successful day. He had finally nailed down the dubbing rights to the original MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM series, the best Christmas present he'd received in years. As he slipped into his Veritech-and-Minmei print PJs, he thought excitedly about how he would use his new acquisition. "Let's see, with a little computer video- processing, I can get Char to look like Khyron. Yeah! That's the ticket! Robotech III: The Wrath of Khyron!" Carl skipped into the bedroom, tossed a few darts at the picture of Robert Woodhead on his wall, and jumped into bed. He fell asleep the way he always did: reading his list of Marketing Fantasies. "Anatomically correct Dirty Pair dolls. Bet I could move those pretty fast. Vampire Hunter D vitamins. If only I could get the RANMA 1/2 rights. Then I could sell 'Ranma noodles'! No, wait, that wouldn't work. They go *limp* in hot water..." Carl drifted off to sleep, visions of megabucks dancing in his head. No sooner had Carl begun to dream his favorite dream, the one where he receives the Nobel Prize for Literature for his rewriting of CASTLE CAGLIOSTRO, than he was awoken by a horrible clattering noise. "Carllllll..." came an eery voice, drifting up the stairwell into his room. "Carrrrllll..." "Damn autograph hounds," muttered Carl as he pulled himself out of bed, still half-asleep. He pulled a few 8x10 glossies of himself off the pile on his nightstand, grabbed a pen, and headed for the door. What he saw when he opened the door made him start fully awake. "Jerry? What are you doing here?" It was Carl's friend and busness partner, Jerry Beck. Jerry came to Carl's house often, but this time he looked a little different. For one thing, he was wrapped in a long, heavy chain that he pulled behind him as he walked. For another, Carl could see through him. "I have come to speak with you, Carl." "Jerry, are you okay? You look almost dead." "I *am* dead, Carl." Carl was shocked. "But...but how?! I just spoke to you the other day!" "It only happened last night. I was attending a showing of the dubbed SILENT MOBIUS. It was horrible, Carl. After an hour, the fans couldn't take it anymore. One of them recognized me, and fifteen minutes later, they'd tied together fifty feet of Twizzlers and hanged me." "But didn't any of the theatre employees help?" "Yeah, they sold them the Twizzlers." "Oh," said Carl, running out of things to say. "Well, I'm sorry, old pal. I promise that I'll put flowers on your grave and--" "Shut up!" Jerry shouted. "I'm not finished! It's not fair, Carl! They always hated you more! Why did I have be one to get it?! And if that's not bad enough, wait'll you hear about the afterlife! Look at these chains! You wanna know where these came from?" Carl just stared glassy-eyed at the spectre. The thought of being eternally tormented by a pissed-off ghost wasn't sitting too well with him. "Take a look at this link," said Jerry, thrusting the ghost-chain in his face. "See what's written on it?" Carl looked. Pressed into the link was the legend "AKIRA". Jerry shifted the chain in his hands. "And how about this one?!" That one said "VAMPIRE HUNTER D". "Gee," said Carl. "We did that one too." "Yeah! We did *all* of these! Each of the links in this chain represents one of the crappy anime dubs Streamline has produced! And I'm forced to carry it through eternity! Seems the folks upstairs are big-time anime fans..." "But that's an awful lot of links. Streamline hasn't done *that* many dubs." "Not YET. The other links represent features you are destined to dub in the future." "REALLY?!" asked Carl, his eyes going wide with excitement. "Lemme see, lemme see!" "Hey, knock it off!" yelled Jerry, trying to gather up the chain. "It's not for you to know the future! Not yet, at least!" "YES! That one says BUBBLE GUM CRISIS! Ha ha!" Carl thumbed his nose at the picture of Robert Woodhead on the wall and gave him the raspberry. "I showed you, huh? Told you you'd go under! Ha ha ha ha ha!" "It's not too late to change, Carl," said Jerry, meaningfully. "Who wants to change? I'm gonna be rich, rich, rich!" "And then you'll die, and face the same fate as me." "What? That sucks." "As I said, Carl, it's not too late for you to change. Tonight you will be visited by three ghosts--well, four if you count me. They will attempt to convince you of the error of your ways. Heed their advice, Carl. There is yet hope." And with a ghastly moan, Jerry vanished. Carl stood there for a moment, thinking about what his late friend had told him. Then he thought about the chain link that had said "BUBBLE GUM CRISIS" on it. He grinned, flipped Mr. Woodhead the bird and jumped into bed. In his dream, Priss was singing, with Reba West's voice. Carl was pleased with how successful the dubbing had been, except for the fact that the song sounded more like one Minmei would sing... Carl woke up and rubbed his eyes. Yup, Minmei was in his room, all right, in all her animated glory, singing something that sounded an awful lot like a song from ROBOTECH: "Wake up, you lug Or you will be drug Right out of bed onto the floor And I'll keep on, singing Your ears are ringing And did I mention how you snore? Get up, get dressed You've had enough rest We have some things to show to you! And the way that, you'll feel Will be so unreal We think that you might come unglued! So c'mon, big guy, let's move!" "Sorry for the hostile wake-up," said Rick Hunter, who was behind Minmei in his RDF flightsuit. "But Minmei insisted. Said it was in her contract." "Oh, Rick," whined Minmei. "What do you want with me?" asked Carl. "Together, we're acting as the ghosts of Christmas Past. We're going to take you into the past to show you your life." "I've already seen it," Carl yawned. "Yeah, but we're going to provide a running commentary!" Minmei replied cheerily. "My Veritech is parked outside," said Rick. "Shall we go?" "Sure, what the hell." The Veritech was in Battloid mode, the better to reach the upper floor window of Carl's bedroom. The three of them clambered inside. "There's not really room for three," Rick said, "so we're going to have to get friendly." Minmei slapped Carl in the face. "Knock it off, you lecher!" "But..." "Oh, shut up! You just want me because I'm so famous! Everyone does, you know." "Hang on," said Rick. "Here we go!" The Veritech jogged along in robot-mode for a few steps, then quickly shifted to Guardian, and then flight-mode, streaming off into the sky. "Prepare for time vortex!" announced Rick. "I don't remember that," said Carl. "You haven't rewritten ORGUSS yet." The Veritech leapt forward into a tunnel of swirling colors, then emerged over a town. The Veritech landed in the street without drawing any attention, and the three got out. "Hey!" Carl shouted. "This is the house where I grew up!" "That's right," Minmei said. "C'mon, let's look inside." She pushed Carl toward the door and, to his amazement, he went right through it. Rick and Minmei followed after. "What we want to check out is in the TV room," said Rick. "Why don't you show us where it is?" Carl led the others into a room where a young boy was watching TV. "Hey, that's me! I wonder what I'm watching?" He looked at the screen. "SPEED RACER, shoulda guessed." "Do you remember how you felt when you watched it? Or any good cartoon?" Minmei asked. "Sure! It felt great! That's one of the main reasons I got into this business." "Of course if felt great! It made you laugh, or cry, or get all excited! Wow, I think I'm gonna sing again!" "Oh, god, please don't," said Rick. "Oooooh! Why are you so mean to me these days?" "Because I've got a babe twice as gorgeous as you and three times as smart. Now shut up or I'll slap you again. We're done here," Rick said to Carl. "C'mon, let's go." A quick trip through the time vortex found them at the studios of Harmony Gold. Soon the three were busy watching a younger Carl create ROBOTECH. "My pride and joy," said the present-day Carl. "I had to take three Japanese series and present them in a form that an American TV station would actually buy. I didn't do too badly." "Heck, no!" Minmei exclaimed. "You did great! It's been seven years since ROBOTECH was broadcast anywhere in the U.S., and it's still popular! It's one of the most popular reasons given that fans got into anime in the 80's!" "So why are we here? I thought you guys were going to show me the error of my ways. This was one of my greatest successes!" "Just to make a point," said Rick. "You did rewrite a bit of the original scripts. My name isn't really Rick, you know." "No one would buy a series with a hero named 'Hikaru'!" "But 'Minmei' is okay?" "Yeah, but she wasn't the main character!" "Whatever." Rick looked at his watch. "We better get a move on." The three boarded the Veritech in the studio parking lot. A quick jaunt through the time vortex, and they were at the offices of Canon Films. The three watched as the head honchos watched the first cut of ROBOTECH: THE MOVIE. The most important looking guy harumphed as the movie ended. "What's with all the talk-talk-talk? What I wanted was lots of robots walking around, shooting each other!" "With all due respect," said the younger Carl. "I'm not sure your opinion is representative of the target group for this film. Maybe you should show this to--" The important guy angrily drew himself up. "Do you know who I am? I am Menachem Golan! I was half of Golan-Globus Productions, the company that got more movies on the Elvira show in one year than all the other studios combined! So when I say I want robots walking around shooting each other, I mean just that! Robots, walk-walk, shoot--BOOM!" "But sir," younger Carl complained, "that would require a substantial rewriting of the script! I'd have to chop the thing to bits and edit in a crummy TV series!" "Well, then, I suppose we could just forget our deal and tear up the contract. Of course, you'd forfeit the rights to the film and all compensation--" "I'll do it." "Oooh," said Rick to the modern Carl. "Looks like you dropped a few principle points there." "Oh, for crying out loud! Everyone knows this story! I didn't have a choice!" "Maybe not. C'mon, we have one more stop." The Veritech exited the time vortex and landed in the parking lot of the Red Lion Inn in San Jose. The three walked into Anime Expo '92, right past people who were hired to keep people like them out. Rick and Minmei led Carl to the main panel room, where a slightly younger Carl was speaking to an audience, along with Robert Woodhead and several others. The room was packed. "Gee, I hope we can get good seats," said Minmei. On the panel, the Carl of the past was talking. "Basically, what it boils down to is this: my products are selling quite well. I'm very pleased with my sales. And as long as my products continue to sell, the complaints of a handful of individuals aren't going to bother me." "Wow," Minmei said. "Did he just blow everyone off?" "Yeah," Rick replied. "But he was pretty diplomatic about it. I don't think the crowd got it." "I didn't mean anything bad by that," said modern-Carl. "You didn't mean to say that, as long as you could sell to somebody, the loyal fans of the original work who wanted to see a faithful adaptation could go screw themselves?" "No! Well,... Oh, #$%^ this! Take me home!" "That's where we're going." As they exited the time vortex, Rick spoke. "Let me see if I understand this. You didn't have a choice about rewriting ROBOTECH, or that movie, right?" Carl nodded, glaring. "But you had a choice when you dubbed CASTLE CAGLIOSTRO, for example. Why'd you change the script for that?" "It needed work if it was going to sell." "You mean it wouldn't sell the way it was?" "No, but--" "But you could sell more copies by dumbing it down." "Are we home yet?" "Yup, there's your place down there." "Well, aren't you going to land?" "No need," said Rick, and pushed the eject button. Carl shot screaming out of the Veritech as Minmei cheerfully shouted goodbyes after him, and then he was falling, falling, falling... He sat up in bed, sweating. "Whew, what a dream. That must be what they call a 'guilt trip'." He walked to the bathroom to get a glass of water. When he came back the Dirty Pair were waiting for him. ------------------------------------------------------------- That's as far as I got. Anyone care to write what the Dirty Pair do to him in the Present? Zoner? (BTW, the ghost from the future was going to be Vampire Hunter D...) ---------- Ryan Mathews -- Email: bn981@cleveland.freenet.edu DISCLAIMER: Any resemblence of this Snailmail: 786 High Street article to rational thought is Bedford, OH 44146 purely coincidental.