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FADE IN: EXT. IN THE WOODS - DAY Our always smiling HOST walks along through the tall green trees. He is a fairly good looking, in shape man with a yellow collared cotton T-shirt, short brown shorts (with a belt), and hiking shoes. HOST: Hi there. You know when people think of California, they think of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Bayliss, but what really makes California the great state that it is, is its small towns. And no town demonstrates that more than Parson's Wheel. EXT. MOVING CAR SHOT OF FOREST SCENERY - DAY SUPER ON SCREEN: PARSON'S WHEEL HOST (VO): Parson's Wheel is located in old gold rush country, right next to the Abacon River. The town is full of history. INT. GIFT STORE - DAY Our Host is inside with TOUR GUIDE MARK, who wears forest ranger type clothes. HOST: And one person who knows a lot about its history is our tour guide Mark Bonnet. Mark, how are you? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Not too bad. Not too dab backwards. HOST: So tell us where we are. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well we're here in the McHorry House Gift Shop. The actual McHorry House is now a Wal-Mart, but the gift shop still exists. HOST: Who was McHorry? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well McHorry was the man who lived in the McHorry House along with his wife, Linda and their three children, Janice, Berthold, and Parsons. The latter, of course, named after the founder of the town, Cadwaller Parsons. HOST: Well let's talk about him. Where did the name, Parson's Wheel, come from? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well Cadwaller Parsons was a very popular magician around this area in the late 1800s. He did shows all around the Sacramento and even the San Francisco area and his big act was training inanimate objects to do tricks. INT. CIRCUS RING - DAY Black and white footage of CADWALLER PARSONS, in lion tamer type clothing, whipping a refrigerator with its bottom door open. TOUR GUIDE MARK (VO/CONT'D): Like making telephones ring instantly and making rocks...juggle and things like that. BACK TO SCENE HOST: Where does the wheel part of Parson's Wheel come in? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well legend has it that Parsons took a wheel off an old horse and buggy...off the buggy part. Horses don't have wheels...and took that wheel and rolled it down a hill. And he said stop and the wheel fell down and that's how we got the name, Parson's Wheel. EXT. OLD FOLKS RETIREMENT HOME - DAY Our Host and Tour Guide Mark are with the bald, ninety year old, OLD CLANCY. They sit outside at a patio table. SUPER ON SCREEN: OLD CLANCY OLD CLANCY: I knew Cadwaller Parsons. Great tall man. Had a big long neck. And he'd use that neck to reach the tops of the trees where he'd eat the leaves off. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Uh no, Old Clancy. You're thinking of a giraffe. (to Host) Just went to the zoo. (to Old Clancy) You're old Clancy, but Cadwaller Parsons was just a little before your time. OLD CLANCY: Impossible! Nothing is before my time! EXT. BY THE PORT - DAY The Host and Tour Guide Mark walk along the water in the port. There are no ships around. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Now Parson's Wheel is one of the few towns in this area to actually have a port. And this is it. Notice that there are no ships or large water craft in around. HOST: Yes. I see that. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well, Parson's Wheel is the only ship-less seaport in America, mostly because we're nowhere near the sea. Now a lot of people say "Well, why don't you just call it a dock by small lake?" HOST: And your answer? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well it's a port. INT. STEAMROOM - DAY Our Host stands confidently unaffected by the steam. HOST: Across the port is the Jose Vasquez Shower Art Museum. What is shower art, you ask? INT. BATHROOM - DAY Close - up of the Spanish accented artsy type, JOSE VASQUEZ. He speaks to the camera. JOSE VASQUEZ: Shower art is an art form that people in America just haven't figured out yet. They...they don't understand it. They say it's foolish. Something a kid would do. And I say that's bullshit. The camera pulls out to find Jose sitting on the toilet in a steamed up bathroom. In front of him is a small mirror on an easel. With his fingers, he makes a picture on the steamed mirror of a NUDE MODEL, standing in front of him. The picture is less than impressive. Our Host and Tour Guide Mark stand in the bathtub. Mark looks at Jose's picture while the Host is more intrigued with the nude model. JOSE VASQUEZ (V/O): I take my work very seriously. It's something that has been passed down in the family for hundreds of years or at least since the time of central plumbing and I'm not going to stop doing it no matter what anybody thinks. This is my life we're talking about. TOUR GUIDE MARK: (looking at Jose's picture) That's nice, but I think you need something right here. Mark goes to put a little dot with his finger on the picture, but his finger slips, making a big line through the drawing. Jose is muy upset. JOSE VASQUEZ: My painting! TOUR GUIDE MARK: (worried) Oops. A very angry Jose takes a towel and puts it over the camera. We hear the sound of a PUNCH. EXT. A GHETTO - DAY We see a PROSTITUTE in the background and also a GANGSTER about to tag a wall with spray paint. Our Host and Tour Guide Mark walk along the sidewalk of this really crummy neighborhood. Mark's right eye is now badly bruised and will stay that way for the rest of the film. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Now most tour guides only show you the nice parts of town but we here in Parson's Wheel like to show people the really nice part and the really bad part. And let me tell you, it doesn't get much worse than right here. This is what we call Gangster Cove and despite the fact that six out of ten people who come here never come out, this area has one of Parson's Wheels' greatest claims to fame. Mark presses the doorbell of a house. The door opens to reveal the seventy year old African American, ROBERT PRESLEY. ROBERT PRESLEY: Yes? SUPER ON SCREEN: ROBERT PRESLEY HOST: Hi there. My tour guide Mark, here, tells us that you have something very special to the people of Parson's Wheel. ROBERT PRESLEY: Yes. Yes I do. It's right here in the backyard. Come on in. EXT. BACKYARD OF ROBERT'S HOUSE - DAY He actually has a very nice backyard. Lots of greenery. The three of them all stand around a fish pond looking at the one large fish in it. ROBERT PRESLEY: This is Horace, the oldest living fish in the world. He's been here as long as I have and I'm seventy years old. HOST: Wait a minute. This is the oldest fish in the world? ROBERT PRESLEY: Yes. Yes. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well actually we don't really know for sure if he's the oldest fish in the world. We just assume. There's no actual proof of anything. HOST: He looks pretty lonely. Why don't you give him a playmate? ROBERT PRESLEY: Well we tried that but Horace here ate him. That's what happened to Ramco. HOST: Who's Ramco? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Uh...Ramco was the oldest living fish prior to Horace's consumption of him. ROBERT PRESLEY: Ramco predated Columbus. EXT. OLD FOLKS RETIREMENT HOME - DAY OLD CLANCY: He didn't predate me! INT. MUSEUM - DAY The Host and Tour Guide Mark are in the Parson's Wheel Museum. The museum is rather small and cluttered with miscellaneous old junk and pictures. Our Host stands next to a small fish bowl sitting on a counter. Next to the fish bowl is a large thick old book. HOST: Well now we're in the Parson's Wheel Museum and Floor Tile shop, right next to the actual bowl that Ramco the fish lived in prior to his death. Now this bowl's pretty small so I suspect Ramco was a little tinier than Horace. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Yes. HOST: And what's this book sitting here? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Uh...that is a book by the late French philosopher Francois Le Chanois. He was very famous around the scientific/enlightenment movement in the 1600's. HOST: And what does he have to do with Parson's Wheel? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well his book is in our museum. CUT TO: The two of them looking at a picture of a cow on the wall of the museum. HOST: Now why is there a picture of a cow here? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well that's a very famous cow you're looking at. That's Betsy, the only cow ever to have a recording contract. Not only that but the only cow ever to have a hit. You ever heard of the song, "Scary Things Are Happening"? HOST: No. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well it was a huge song during World War II. HOST: Did she sing it? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well of course not. Cows can't sing. Moo moo moo moo moo. Is that singing? HOST: Well no. I was just... TOUR GUIDE MARK: Betsy was strictly a songwriter. Wrote all kinds of songs. Studied Mozart, Bach, and even latter-days like Gershwin and Copeland. HOST: (jokingly) Well I guess Parson's Wheel just has it all. An old fish and a singing cow. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Now I just told you she didn't sing! EXT. COW PASTURE - DAY As we watch a bunch of cows doing cow things, we hear the original song, "Scary Things Are Happening". (The music and lyrics are at the end of the script) This goes on for about half a minute. EXT. ON A CLIFFSIDE OVERLOOKING BEAUTIFUL FOREST SCENERY - SUNNY DAY Our Host and Mark comfortably stand near the edge. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Now this is a rather infamous spot in Parson's Wheel. I mean most of the locals don't even know about this. This spot is important for two reasons. Number one: This was the spot that Mark Twain fell down. HOST: He fell down? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Yes. Not off the cliff! Just right here on the ground. HOST: Was this early in his career? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Oh yes. Nobody knew who Mark Twain was back then. He was a young man and went all around this area. Ah...the Frog Jumping Contest in Angel's Camp, that's just around the corner. HOST: So we're standing right where the legendary writer, Mark Twain, fell down? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Correct. HOST: How did he fall down? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Somebody pushed him. HOST: So what's the other thing notable about this spot? TOUR GUIDE MARK: Well at this point on the cliff, on any given day, rain or shine, you can see the planet Neptune without a telescope. HOST: Really. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Just look out at the sky. You'll see it. The two stare off into the sky. TOUR GUIDE MARK: (CONT'D) See it? HOST: No. Not really. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Don't get it mistaken with that bird there? HOST: What bird? TOUR GUIDE MARK: (slightly irritated) The bird in that tree over there. HOST: (pointing to a tree) That tree? TOUR GUIDE MARK: (pointing to a different tree) No! That tree! HOST: I still don't see the bird. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Look. Forget the bird! It's not important! We're looking for Neptune. It's right there! Long pause as they look. HOST: (after some hesitation) I'm sorry but I just don't see anything. TOUR GUIDE MARK: Look. It's right there next to your Uranus! HOST: What? BLACK SCREEN The ending credits go by to the tune of "Scary Things Are Happening". FADE OUT SCARY THINGS ARE HAPPENING (Gargiulo) Slow Folksy Beat Gm Em Gm Em Isn’t it all rather confusing? Isn’t it all too bad? Gm Em Isn’t it all rather abusing? Isn’t it all quite sad? NC I don’t know most anything but scary things are happening. Rate or review this sketch. |
