Well, another section for you!
I realize that this story is coming in rather choppy bits, but once I actually start hitting plotline, the chapters will get longer. Thisone nearly went up last night, but I decided it was too short. Now it's longer and makes slightly more sense, and that's probably worth the wait!
super muppet and Daylight: Thanks a bunch, glad you like it! It's so nice to be encouraged!
Fragglemuppet: Thanks so much for the welcome. There are so many great writers here, well it's been a treat hunting down the various stories. It's an honour to be counted among them.
froggiegirl18: I didn't realize that the creator of this wonderful place was Phillip, but he is surely beloved. I was actually thinking of Kermit's amnesia name from Muppets Take Manhattan but your way works too. Allow me to be a bit mysterious here and say that in short order, Piggy will desperate to avoid contacting Kermit.
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The pre-dress rehearsal, or the “Dress-Dress” was always chaotic. Nine times out of eight, no element of the show had actually been nailed down by that rehearsal. Acts arrived, grew, shrank, and disappeared, often literally. Sometimes they even went through all four stages in the course of an hour. In short, the Dress-Dress made the actual show look as cleanly polished as Martha Stewart's bathroom floor.
During true dress rehearsals, Kermit fairly vibrated with nervous energy, trying to wrap his adorable little head around a show line up that bore little resemblance to the painstakingly laid plans of the previous weeks. The actual performance only upped his tension level and often that was when his friends would try to shield him from whatever disaster had befallen that particular evening. They were rarely successful and Kermit was frequently stressed and occasionally disheartened by his perceived failures as a director… until the end of the show.
Outside observers, journalists, fans and the like, sometimes puzzled over why the little frog would put himself through such a harrying experience week after week, year after year, but they were not privy to the euphoria that gripped him after each performance. Like a survivor of a near-death experience, Kermit was always in love with life after somehow grappling his way through the Muppet Show. He’d made people happy, and, admittedly, two specific people unhappy, for another day and it was somehow instantly worthwhile. The agony of the planning and all the desperate improvisation had paid off and Kermit could settle back and start it all over again.
Still, the Dress-Dress was not something anyone looked forward to, with the possible exception of Gonzo the Great, who thrived on the chaos. Over the years, Kermit, a closet anarchist himself, had learned to relax for this part of the process, if only to preserve the tenuous threads of his sanity. Unfortunately, Fozzie, Rowlf and Scooter, who were largely responsible for overseeing everything during their director's absence, did not have the benefit of that bit of Frogish wisdom.
Without much discussion, the trio had fallen into specific roles that best suited their own individual talents. Scooter was scooting through the theatre so fast that certain physicists would have thrown out their calculators in dismay to see him go. He was somehow everywhere at once, an orange blur of youthful energy, chasing down props and performers, finding out what needed doing and getting that information to the doers. It wasn’t so very different from his usual responsibilities, except that he could not bring any problems to Kermit.
Rowlf tended to take over from that point, making sure that the doers actually got to the doings they were supposed to be doing. In sharp contrast to Scooter, the easy-going pianist never seemed to hurry, did not seem to feel any pressure, and had an instantly relaxing effect on those around him. Muppets were wide-eyed and racing after an encounter with Scooter and cheerfully on task after a friendly chat with Rowlf.
It was on Fozzie that fell Kermit’s greatest burden… that of worrying. When something went wrong, and something was always going wrong, it was up to him to fix it. Well, not so much to fix it, as to be aware that it had gone wrong. Experienced Kermit was positively laconic during the Dress-Dress for exactly the reason Fozzie was flitting from place to place, hovering anxiously as people complained, then flitting off to hover somewhere else. There was absolutely nothing to be done about the worries for the most part. No sooner would you hear about some horrible catastrophe that would end civilization as they knew it, then the problem would be a niggling little detail that someone else had already fixed. However, as Sam the Eagle had sternly reminded Fozzie, you had to be perpetually prepared for the unexpected.
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All in all, the day’s Dress-Dress went swimmingly; presuming the swimmer in question was competing in the Olympics and had never laid eyes on a swimming pool. Still, there were no fatalities and most everyone was in good spirits. Piggy’s flirty little torch song had gone off without a hitch and Gonzo had hurt no one but himself when he attempted to find matching socks blindfolded while being shot out of a cannon. The only major incident occurred when some well-intentioned, and wisely unidentified person slipped Animal a mild sedative. It wasn’t particularly effective. Only Animal’s chief caregiver, the chronically groovy Floyd Pepper, had picked up on the subtle differences in the drummer’s wild stare and slightly mellower demeanor; to everyone else, Animal was his normal, frenzied, maniacal, completely abnormal self. The bass player was furious, however, and took up his complaint with Fozzie.
“Dude’s just not himself! I mean, just look at this!”
Fozzie followed Floyd’s gesture and ended up staring helplessly at Animal’s drum set. Desperately, he tried to figure out what he was supposed to be shocking him. “It looks fine to me,” he answered finally after peering cautiously over the battered surface.
“Right on!” Floyd nodded, “No teeth marks, no scratches, no holes.” He gave the bear a hard look. “You know what that means?”
“Everything’s fine and I can go away now?” Fozzie asked hopefully, surreptitiously looking about for an escape route.
“No, man,” Floyd replied, oblivious to the hopes he’d just dashed, “It means no passion, and no passion,” he emphasized, “means no go.”
By this point, the entire band had gathered around them, including the apparently passionless Animal, who was breathing heavily as he stared at Fozzie like the bear was composed of delicious drums. There was no doubt about it: even drugged, Animal put the mayhem in the Electric Mayhem.
“Oh, right, right! That’s what’s wrong, of course, I mean, of course you can’t play without… passion. Heh.” Whimpering was still beneath the bear’s dignity at that point, but he was heading there fast.
As one, the band members settled a bit, satisfied. “I’m glad to see you understand our musical convictions.” Fozzie smiled in relief. “Now,” Floyd continued, “What are you going to do about it?”
The bear stuttered nervously for a moment before inspiration hit. “Coffee!” he cried.
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Okay, so perhaps letting Animal drink that much black coffee had not been a brilliant idea. It all worked out in the end. The band had been thrilled when he’d effortlessly drummed them into exhaustion and Clifford’s old enemy, the perpetually malfunctioning light, had been mercifully put out of his misery once and for all during the resultant… mayhem. The frenzy had gotten slightly out of hand when Animal had started ravaging the dressing rooms, but before too much damage had been done Piggy leapt to her knickknacks’ defense in the “knick” of time, efficiently flattening the drummer. It was no small tribute to the strength of the coffee running through his veins that she’d had to chop him no less than four times before the crazed drummer was sufficiently deterred. In fact, Animal seemed to enjoy it, looking up at the pig and laughing until he eventually curled up for a well-earned nap.
Her mission accomplished, Piggy delicately brushed a stray lock of hair from her face then turned deliberately, looking directly in each pair of the onlookers’ eyes until, finally, her gaze lingered on Fozzie.
“Kermit,” she said firmly, “would have known better.” She turned then and returned to her dressing room, leaving them to the sizable task of putting things together again.
Oddly enough, Miss Piggy would soon be in need of similar assistance.
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Oh, and sorry about the print size. It seems to shrink by itself. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
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