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transcribed by Alan Back (ajback@yahoo.com)
(Opening shot: a small harbor town, seen from a distance out at sea. Ships are docked at the waterfront; their design is from several hundred years ago, perhaps the eighteenth century. The buildings give the same indication. It is nighttime, and a violent thunderstorm is raging.) Pirate voice: The city of Townsville lie dead ahead! (More thunder and lightning, after which the camera cuts to a ship plowing resolutely through the surging tide. A big, muscular crewman is at the wheel and struggling to steer a true course.) Pirate voice: Hold her steady, lad! Steersman: I’m trying, Cap’n! (Pull back from him. The first speaker, the ship’s captain, moves into view—typical pirate leader: eyepatch, scar, billowing shirt under his jacket, broad hat, parrot perched on shoulder.) Captain: Aye. Ye swabbies, we be getting closer now! Parrot: (squawking) Close! (Up in the crow’s nest, a runty crewman is on lookout duty. He points out over the sea.) Lookout: Land ho, Cap’n! (Lightning; the captain laughs and checks a document.) Captain: Soon the treasure of Captain Flynn will be ours, lads. (Close-up of the parchment in his hands. It is a map that shows a piece of coastline by an inlet labeled “Townsville Bay”; an X is set not far inland, in a region marked as Townsville.) Captain: (from o.c.) With map in hand, we need only find the big tree. (Close-up of the X; a tree is drawn on the map near it, and a dotted line connects the two.) Captain: (from o.c.) Then, only fifty paces separates us from the lost treasure of Captain Flynn! (Cut to the steersman.) Steersman: (pointing) What’s that? (Long shot of the ship. A broad vertical shaft of blue-green light has appeared in its path.) Captain: It matters not! Sail on, and trust your captain to get you through— (Extreme close-up.) —or I be not Captain Crack McCraigen! (Another long shot; the vessel has now almost reached the light. The camera shifts to give a closer view, in which it slowly advances into the brightness and fades from view entirely. After it is gone, there is a quick flash of white light that fills the screen. When it clears, we see the uppermost branches of a large tree. Now it is daytime, and quite peaceful at that, judging from the sound of birdsong echoing all around.) (Tilt down slowly to the base of the tree, which sits by a fence in someone’s yard. The short lookout steps out from behind it, while the steersman and Captain McCraigen walk into view toward him.) Lookout: This be the biggest tree we seen, Cap’n. (McCraigen checks his map.) McCraigen: Agreed. Now, fifty paces. (putting it away, pointing) North… (swinging arm across a bit) …by northwest. (His perspective on the end of this; he ends up pointing straight at the front door of the girls’ house as we know it today. McCraigen and his crew have traveled through time to the present due to their encounter with that beam of light.) Lookout: (from o.c.) Townsville sure has changed. (Back to McCraigen.) McCraigen: It matters not. Treasure awaits! (Cut to just inside the door, which is promptly kicked down by the beefy steersman. All three pirates run into the house.) Steersman: (breaking a painting) Smash, smash! (The coffee table gets it.) Smash! Where is the booty that we seek? (McCraigen thinks this over for a moment, then looks down at the living room carpet. Cut to the patch of it at his feet.) McCraigen: (from o.c.) Start digging! (A cutlass whistles into view and slashes at the floor. Pull back to show that both McCraigen and the steersman are using their swords as makeshift shovels on the indicated spot. The next words bring them to a halt.) Lookout: (from o.c.) Hey! Cap’n! Look! (Cut to him; he opens the door to the lab.) I found the hold! (Camera shift: just inside the lab. The three men look in greedily.) McCraigen: Right! (Pull back across the room.) Good job, Mr. Larsen! (Close-up of a heavysteel door, with a padlocked bar holding it closed, as footsteps approach. Extreme close-up of the lock; the muzzle of a flintlock pistol is pushed into view next to it, and the weapon is cocked and fired. The lock falls away, and the camera pulls back to reveal McCraigen as the one at the door. He opens it and finds a crate of Chemical X. Close-up of this.) McCraigen: (from o.c.) X marks the spot! (Cut to the three pirates.) Now, let’s get this booty back to the ship. (Wipe to its Jolly Roger flag waving in the breeze.) McCraigen: (from o.c.) Mr. Larsen! Close-up of the lid of the crate. Two hands, those of the lookout Larsen, are braced on the edge.) McCraigen: (from o.c.) Do the honors! (The lid is yanked away; inside are many flasks of the familiar black liquid. Pull back; the pirates are back on deck. McCraigen picks up a flask and eyes it disgustedly on the next line.) McCraigen: This be not the treasure of Captain Flynn! (He throws it down; it shatters on the deck.) The treasure must still be in that structure. (The parrot on his shoulder flutters away. Cut to the edge of the puddle from the broken flask; it lights near this and laps up some of it.) McCraigen: (from o.c.) We go back and search again! (The bird suddenly goes rigid and then lets out a panicked squawk due to the overdose it has just received.) Steersman: Captain, look at the bird! (A long, agonized sound escapes its beak, after which it takes off like a rocket and zooms around the masts and rigging, with a streak of red light trailing behind. The crew can only watch incredulously; after the creature has blasted past them, they eye the flasks of Chemical X with new wonder. In a flash, the containers are being grabbed up. McCraigen chugs one, then the steersman, then Larsen kneels to lick up the spilled remnants from the deck. A couple of empties are tossed aside, and the guzzling continues at a feverish pace. Liberal quantities are spilled and dripped onto the planks; more drained flasks crash down amid the mess.) (Close-up of a very satisfied McCraigen, whose body turns green and becomes wreathed in flames of the same color as the Chemical X takes effect. His one remaining eye goes bright red. Laughing, he swings his cutlass and produces a beam that blows up a nearby docked ship. The steersman drinks down two more flasks, throws them aside, and roars as he undergoes a transformation like McCraigen’s. He reaches both arms in front of himself and fires a beam that connects squarely with Larsen. When the smoke clears, the little fellow is charred from head to toe, but otherwise unharmed He lets off a whoop and chugs down the flask he is holding. It produces the same change in him; cackling madly; he rises from the deck and floats up toward the crow’s nest.) (The pools of spilled Chemical X start to glow green, and when the camera cuts to just below the deck, we see that the material has started to seep through the wood. Tilt down slowly to the floor of the ship’s cargo hold, which is rapidly becoming saturated with the reagent. Long shot of the ship; now every part of it is glowing, and it slowly rises out of the water. An overhead shot of the waterfront reveals just how high it is climbing over the city. Back to the deck.) McCraigen: Take the wheel! (Cut to it; he continues o.c.) Avast, ye swabs! (The steersman jumps up to his post.) Steersman: Aye, Captain! McCraigen: Lower the sails! (Larsen stands atop the furled mainsail.) Larsen: Aye-aye, Cap’n! (He follows orders; now McCraigen leaps along the ship’s bowsprit.) McCraigen: Let fly, and set course inland, matey. (drawing his sword) Our treasure awaits! (The three buccaneers’ laughter rings out as the ship floats toward the city proper. Dissolve to a slow pan across the Mayor’s office; the vessel is passing his window. He comes into view, seated at his desk and playing with a ball and paddle. The scene outside is of absolutely no interest to him; all his attention is fixed on the rubber ball, flying out and back on the elastic string that connects it to the paddle. It is only when the ship has gone nearly the full width of the office that he finally takes notice and looks out at the new arrivals. The camera stops its pan at this point.) Mayor: Whoa…I guess the pirate look is back in style. Oh, goody! (The exterior of the house. The Professor’s car pulls into the driveway; cut to inside the front doorway as he walks in humming. After a few steps, though, he stops short and realizes that the door is lying in pieces around him.) Professor: Huh? Oh, that’s odd. There was a door there when I left. [Animation goof: In the exterior shot, the door is back on its hinges.] (Cut to just behind him; a large shadow is thrown across him from o.c., and he turns toward it.) Professor: (frightened) Oh! (His perspective: a descending club in the steersman’s fist. It connects, and the screen blacks out to the sound of a body collapsing to the floor—the Professor has been knocked unconscious. Snap to a close-up of his face; he lies prone on the ship’s deck. Now he comes around.) Professor: Uhh…? McCraigen: (from o.c.) Have a nice rest…you scurvy dog? (Pull back. The man of science has been quite thoroughly tied up from shoulders to knees; only his hands protrude from the ropes. The ship has stopped glowing.) Professor: Wh…what? (standing up to face the crew) Pirates? (Their appearance is back to normal.) McCraigen: How observant of you, landlubber. Now, where did you hide the treasure of Captain Flynn? Professor: I don’t have any treasure. McCraigen: Our map led us to your home, but all we be finding is your stash of refreshments. (Cut to the empty Chemical X crate; he points at it and continues o.c.) And mighty fine refreshments they be—but not the treasure we seek! (Back to the Professor and McCraigen.) [Animation goof: In the previous shots, McCraigen’s parrot is not on his shoulder. It reappears at this point.] Professor: (puzzled) Uh…you drank all of it. Larsen: (floating up past him) Oh, yeah! Professor: Oh, boy. McCraigen: So where is it? I’ll be having that treasure, or I be not Captain Crack McCraigen! Professor: (suddenly animated) Captain Crack McCraigen? You mean the Captain Crack McCraigen? The famous Captain Crack McCraigen and the crew of the Black Watch, the wildest bunch of buccaneers ever to sail the seven seas? McCraigen: Aye. That we are. Professor: Fascinating! But you disappeared hundreds of years ago. McCraigen: We didn’t disappear. We be right here. Professor: Rumor had it that you got caught in the fabled Townsville Bay Vortex just off the coast. It must have catapulted you into the future, which is incredible! I even did my college thesis on it, much to the ridicule of my peers. I discovered that it always appears in twos, which means that it should show itself again soon, providing an opportunity to travel back to your own time. (smugly) You know, I’m a scientist. I can help. (Now the shaft of light from the early scenes has been identified.) McCraigen: (dryly) Do you have the treasure? Professor: Uh, no. McCraigen: Do you know where a big tree is? Professor: No. McCraigen: You’re walking the plank! Professor: (dejectedly) Ohh… (Overhead shot of the house.) Buttercup: (from inside) What the heck happened? (Cut to them; they inspect the remains of the front door.) Blossom: The place is a mess. Bubbles: Oh, no! (pointing) Look! (Close-up of the dropped groceries.) Buttercup: (from o.c.) Oh, no! (Cut to Blossom.) Blossom: Someone’s kidnapped the Professor! (To Bubbles.) Bubbles: Hmmm…I wonder if that flying pirate ship I saw in town had anything to do with it. (Pull back to frame Buttercup.) Buttercup: You saw a flying pirate ship? Why didn’t you say something? Bubbles: We see weird stuff all the time. Buttercup: True, that. (Cut to Blossom and zoom in slowly.) Blossom: I don’t know what flying pirate villains want with the Professor, but we’re gonna find them and make them pay! (She takes off. Overhead view of the house again; the girls fly out through the front doorway. In the city, a row of cannons on one side of the flying Black Watch pirate ship are fired; as the plunderers laugh, the projectiles smash holes into the buildings. The craft floats down the street, launching ordnance from port and starboard and making an unholy mess of the entire place. Close-up of one very worried Professor; pull back to show that he stands precariously on the end of a plank that has been extended over the side. He looks back toward the ship.) Professor: Uh, guys? Is this really necessary? McCraigen: (pointing) Aye! Now quit stalling, you yellow-belly! (The unfortunate man takes one step closer to the end of the plank. Cut to a point just below it, looking up at him as he bands over to see just how long a drop it really is.) Professor: Oh, boy. (Pull back slightly; he straightens up. McCraigen gestures with his sword.) McCraigen: Walk! (Cut to the girls in flight.) Blossom: How hard can it be to find a flying pirate ship in the middle of the— (She never gets to finish that question, as they hit the hull of said flying pirate ship at just that moment. The impact sets the plank vibrating, and the Professor is shaken off balance; he tumbles screaming over the edge.) Bubbles: (rubbing her head.) Ow. That hurt. Buttercup: Guess we found the ship. Blossom: Now to find the Professor. (He falls behind them; they turn in alarm.) Girls: Professor! (They charge down after him and make the catch, carrying him back up into the air.) Professor: Wow. Thanks, girls. There’s no time to lose. We gotta go back to the ship. (They make a beeline for it and deposit him, safe and untied, on the deck before flying off.) Professor: (calling after them) Keep ’em busy! I have a plan! (They swoop back and land on the deck, ready for a dust-up.) Girls: Arr! (The pirates give a yell of their own, and the two sides fly at one another. Bubbles and Larsen collide head-on, Buttercup delivers a flying kick to the steersman’s jaw, and Blossom dodges a cutlass swing from McCraigen. Bubbles kicks Larsen, dodges his counter-punch, and body-slams him to the deck. The steersman throws several punches at Buttercup, who dodges all of them but is then caught with a kick that drives her backward against the mast.) Buttercup: Lucky shot, bub. (She launches herself straight at him and slams headfirst into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. A kick to the face leaves him dazed on his feet. Now Blossom and McCraigen soar up to the mainsail’s yardarm. The pirate captain swings his cutlass to fire several beams as he did earlier; Blossom deflects these easily and squeezes off several blasts from her hand lasers. McCraigen blocks her shots with his sword. Both then leap off and continue the running firefight in midair, circling the mainsail time and again.) (Back on deck, the Professor is checking his watch.) Professor: You’re doing great, girls! Keep them at bay just a bit longer! (Everyone is now battling up and down the length of the Black Watch—and even going under and over it for good measure. Close-up of Blossom, firing hand lasers.) Blossom: We can’t defeat these guys! (She stops; pull back as she avoids McCraigen’s blade. Now Bubbles blazes away.) Bubbles: They’re as strong as us! (She is cut off by the parrot, which flies up and kicks her in the back of the head. The Professor checks his watch again.) Professor: Hold on, girls! (Cut to Buttercup.) Buttercup: How much longer? (She is struck by the steersman and responds with a kick to the gut.) Professor: Should be any time now. (McCraigen laughs and raises his sword to deliver the final stroke to Blossom—but before he can bring the blade down, his face goes slack and he groans. Judging from the sound, he is in considerable internal distress. The steersman roars and gets ready to finish off Buttercup, but he too is suddenly afflicted. Ditto for Larsen, who is getting a battle cry ready as he pulls his fist back to strike Bubbles.) Professor: Bingo! (McCraigen collapses to the deck.) Blossom: What the heck is going on? (The steersman slumps against the mast.) Buttercup: I don’t know. (Larsen falls past her and hits the deck sprawled out on his back. A rumbling belch escapes his lips.) Buttercup: (disguatedly) Nice. (Even the parrot is in bad shape; it totters over to McCraigen.) Parrot: (squawking) Blow me down… (It falls over.) …blow me down. Blossom: This is weird. What happened to them? (The Professor skids to a stop in front of them. If he was animated when describing the Townsville Bay Vortex to McCraigen earlier, he is ready to wet his pants from excitement now.) Professor: (rapid fire) Well, you see, girls, the pirates drank a huge quantity of Chemical X and became supercharged. But it’s been designed to work with other ingredients to provide balancing components to the power yield and quantity embedded. Therefore, when pure-strain Chemical X is overloaded into any given subject, it lacks the absorbing factors necessary to render powers given to said subject permanently, thereby creating a limiting element to the duration of powers received, with appropriate backlash and diminishing returns. Blossom: (testily) Uh…in English? (Close-up of him.) Professor: (normal rhythm) They had too much Chemical X, the powers have worn off, now they’re really tired. Girls: (from o.c., understanding) Ohhh! (Cut to them.) Blossom: So what now? Professor: (from o.c.) Send them back where they came from. (Back to him.) Girls: (from o.c.) How? Professor: (rapid fire) Well, when the Townsville Vortex opened up and sent them into the future, it operated on a multi-level quadrilateral fluctuating dimension that is vertically integrated with oscillating plasmatic shifts. The shifts reverberate through dimensional space, which then bounce off negative matter, resulting in metaphysical and inter-dimensional splash echo, causing a replicating event horizon in the ethereal plane, spreading horizontally back to the median originating incident. Buttercup: (very testily) Professor… Professor: (normal rhythm) The Vortex repeats itself, so we put them back in it. Girls: All right! (He rushes to the wheel.) Professor: Hurry, girls! We haven’t much time! Girls: (saluting) Aye-aye, Captain! (They take off. Pan from the spot where they stood to the incapacitated McCraigen, who lifts his head from the deck planks.) McCraigen: (weakly) Aye…can you keep it down? I got a headache. (The girls push the Black Watch along a new course; the Professor points ahead.) Professor: Thar she blows! (Sure enough, the Vortex has reappeared, emerging from the water as it did earlier on. The ship is carried toward it and lowered until its keel has broken the surface. Lightning starts to flash around the Professor.) Professor: Good job, girls. Let’s go. (They carry him off the deck. As McCraigen groans wearily, the view goes blue-green from the glare of the Vortex’s energy. More lightning strikes, the vessel floats in, and it and the Vortex both disappear. The family watches from the beach as the lightning stops. A piece of parchment—McCraigen’s map—floats down from the sky, having apparently been swept away by a current of wind. The Professor catches it and takes a good look.) Professor: Hmmm… (Close-up of the map; he continues o.c.) A lot has changed since this map was made. (Head-on view of him; the girls look over his shoulders.) Blossom: Yeah. That tree could be any tree in Townsville. (Close-up of the tree and X, zooming in slowly.) Buttercup: (from o.c.) I bet the treasure was never found. (Dissolve to the uppermost branches of a tree and pull back slowly toward ground level. Like the one found by the pirates, this one sits by a fence. Pan slowly across the space to the sound of an appreciative little growl from the Mayor. Townsville Hall comes into view.) Mayor: (from inside) I look positively piratical! (Close-up of him, pulling back slowly. He has dressed the part and is standing atop a large pile of gold coins contained in an open chest. This can only be the treasure of Captain Flynn, as sought by McCraigen and his crew—and the Mayor found it in his front yard.) Mayor: Boy, I thought I’d never find a use for this old chest full of shiny stuff I dug up in my yard. (Cut to behind him and pull back slowly. The chest sits by his bedroom window, and he is looking out over the bay.) Mayor: (singing) Oh, there’s seven seas and one of me, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of pickles! Yo-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee… (He trails off into laughter.) (The standard end shot comes up.) Narrator: And so once again the day is saved—thanks to the Piratepuff Girls! (singing) Yo-ho, yo-ho, it’s a Powerpuff’s life for me! T H E E N D |
