Ruxpin: the Metal Idol

Version 1: Fuzzy

Written by Aaron Shattuck

Edited (poorly) by Chippy the Transvestite Gnome

"Key: the Metal Idol" is the property of Pony Canon.
"Teddy Ruxpin" is either a trademark of Ken Forsse or
Alchemy II, whichever is least likely to sue. No
permission was given from any of the above parties to
write this abomination, but I�m sure that if we took
their children and sent them their little toes in the
mail, they�d be more than willing to comply.


***

o/~Come dreeeeam with me toniiiiiiight...o/~

    I am a very happy bear indeed, reflected Teddy
Ruxpin as he frolicked through the Happy Dappy Forest of
Wonders and Delight. I know! I'll go visit my good
friend, Dr. Newton Gimmick!
    So Teddy made his way to Dr. Gimmick's trailer,
which was cleverly hidden in the roots of an old pine
tree, so the police would not find him. Teddy bounded
into the trailer merrily, but once there, he became very
sad, for his friend lay on the floor, dead and covered
with horrible wounds.
    "Oh Dr. Gimmick," wondered Teddy, "how ever did
you rip your own legs off like that?"

***

    Ajou, Supreme Oppressor of MAVO, was not happy. Ajou
was rarely happy, but he was particularly unhappy now.
Falling off his seat and onto the floor of the speeding
limousine, he clawed at his damp, horror mask of a face
and mumbled to himself vindictively.
    "Why? Why?! My beautiful sons� Bloop urp urp!"
    He was sure that Dr. Gimmick was the one who had
discovered the secret! After all, Ajou had already killed
every other absent-minded genius in the forest, and none
of them knew. Process of elimination should have slated
Gimmick as the man they were looking for, but he had
told them nothing. Not even when Sergei used his eyes as
finger puppets.
    "Eeeeargh! I hate monkeys! No, mommy, not the
clown suit!"
    Sergei (AKA "D") flexed his muscles and looked at
his deranged employer with disgust. He hated the man
with a passion unmatched by any human being for another.
Even those loveable example of a marriage in
disintegration, �The Lockhorns�!. He could think of no
greater pleasure than to take Ajou's head in his massive
hands and squish it like a ripe grape. But he wouldn't do
that, for if he did, Ajou would be dead and he wouldn't
have anyone to hate anymore. And if he had no one to
hate, he wouldn't be able to pursue his true calling:
spoken word performances. Besides, he thought, it could
be worse. I could be working for Jessie Helms.
    "Gimmits! I'm on to your tricks, Marry Poppins!"

***

    Teddy Ruxpin helped himself to some of Dr.
Gimmick's microwave dinners. After all, the poor old man
wouldn't need them, anymore.
    "Te-te-te-te-te-te-teddy!" gurgled the mutilated
scientist, foam and blood leaking down the side of his
mouth.
    Ruxpin gasped. Dr. Gimmick was still alive! How
would he explain the microwave dinners?
    "I-I-I-I haven't got long, Teddy," moaned the good
doctor. "There's uh, uh, uh, uh, a couple things I need
to tell you. Heh heh."
    Teddy mumbled politely in assent, wiping the
imitation pasta sauce off his chin and looking at his
friend with great solemnity.
    "First of all," Gimmick chirped, "I've been using
our little balloon trips as a front for a cocaine
smuggling operation."
    Teddy wasn't sure what cocaine was, so he just
smiled and nodded.
    "Second of all, uh, uh, uh, I-I-uh, uh, uh..."
    Five hours later Dr. Gimmick stopped stuttering.
    "I created you, Teddy. Yes, you see, you might
think you're a bear, but you're not. You're really a
robot!"
    Teddy reeled. What madness was this?! Surely, the
odd little inventor had become crazed with the pain of
his death throes!
    "You're wrong, Dr. Gimmick!" he declared
haughtily. "I'm a real live bear living a real live bear
life in Rillonia and that's that!"
    Teddy felt very smug with his excellent argument,
until one of his arms fell off, revealing the sparking
wires and grinding gears inside his plump, ursine body.
    "Golly," moaned the unhappy bear.
    "Yes, I'm afraid it's true, Teddy," sighed Dr.
Gimmick. "I built you out of a model kit I got when I
sent in enough cereal box tops. I hate to tell you this,
but what I really wanted was the baking soda submarine."
    "Oh, Dr. Gimmick," Teddy cried, stooping to pick
up his arm, "you are speaking things that make no sense
and truly confuse me horrifically with horror!"
    "I'm afraid it gets worse, Teddy. Heh heh. You
see, until this time you were being powered by extra
long-lasting Energizer Batteries(TM), but by my
calculations, they'll run out any day now."
    "Nooo! Noooo!" Teddy was aflame with anguish,
onlyto be cooled by the sudden and unexpected entry of
a rational thought. "Wait, can't I just replace the
batteries?"
    "Well, yes. Except that I welded the battery case
shut. Heh heh."
    Teddy began to cry, dripping wet robo-bear tears
all over Dr. Gimmick's nice carpet.
    "Now don't fret, Teddy. There's a- uh-uh-uh-uh a
slight chance for you! If you can make a thousand
friends, and eat their hearts on the night of a harvest
moon, you'll become a real, live bear and you'll get to
spend the rest of your life in a zoo, amusing
schoolchildren with you bearish antics. Bleah!"
    And with that, Dr. Gimmick died.
    Teddy trembled with grief, both for the fate of
his beloved companion and for the possible fate of
himself. Then he began to build a tent out of Dr.
Gimmick, which was the customary funeral practice in
Rillonia.

***

    "I must find the fabled Cyber Bear of Grundo!" Ajou
shrieked, surprising Sergei with his coherence. "That is
the only way to discover the secret, now that all the
scientists are dead!"
    "D" scowled and popped a ball bearing into his
mouth.
    "Yes! Yes! And once I know the secret, I shall use
it in my evil plans to build an amusement park! Just think,
an amusement park filled with singing robot pirates and
multi-ethnic children and redneck forest animals! A theme
park of� EVIL! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAEEEEK!"
    Suddenly, the limo hit a bump, sending Ajou
sprawling though the air and back down upon the floor
with a mighty crash.
    "Help me up, you idiot!" he demanded of his very
large employee.
    But Sergei was too busy smacking himself in the
back, desperately trying to dislodge the ball bearing
from his throat.

***

    Once again, Teddy found himself skipping merrily
through the woods. It wasn't so bad when he thought
about it. After all, he was awfully good at making
friends, and the thought of sitting naked, in a cage,
with drooling children witnesses to his every action,
sent a shiver of unwholesome desire down the artificial
bear's spine.
    So he skipped and skipped and skipped, singing a
merry tune, until he came upon his friend, the hideous
giant caterpillar, Grubby.
    "Duh, what's up, Teddy?" asked the fuzzy insect
with his trademark Idiot Voice(TM).
    "I'm looking to make a thousand friends, Grubby!
Otherwise, I will die horribly and with much pain."
    "Welp, I'm your friend, so that's one down... I
think."
    Teddy clapped his hands in excitement. He'd have
his quota in no time!
    "Uh... what do ya need us for, anywho, Teddy?"
    "Oh... nothing."
    Grubby thought about this for a few hours and then
slowly nodded his head in understanding. The explanation
made perfect sense to him.
    "Now, let's see..." Teddy mused, aloud. "Who else
is my friend?"
    "Uh... well... uh," Grubby strained his tapioca
mind, grasping for an answer. "There's... uh... there's
Fob!"
    Yes, of course! How could he ever forget Fob?
    And so the two compatriots scoured the Happy Dappy
Forest of Wonders and Delight, in search of their funny
little bird friend.
    Unfortunately, when they found him, they
discovered him dead. Suspicious looking tire tracks were
embedded in his suggestively long neck and squat, little
body.
    "Oh, poo," sniffed Teddy, going to work at
building the bird thing into a tent. "I'll _never_ make
enough friends at this rate!"
    Grubby cracked open the skull of a chipmunk and
drank its brains to gain wisdom.
    "Maybe... uh... maybe you could make some friends
down in the Hard to Find City, Teddy. There's lots a'
folks there."
    Teddy did a happy cartwheel, inadvertently
crushing the half-built Fob tent in the process.

***

    Tamari's day was ruined the moment he picked up
the paper. Right there, on the front page, it read
"Chucky Cheese Band Arrested in Drug Bust. 'Lame,
Anyway,' Say Young Fans."
    Great! Just fucking great! The only clients of his
to have something vaguely resembling a career were now
through! And they had come so close to learning how to
play their instruments, too!
    Tamari pushed his sleazy sunglasses up the bridge
of his nose, obscuring the hated headlines with their
blackness. He had been having a _very_ rough month. Why,
just last week one of his porno stars had been taken
from him! He shook his head in indignation, how was _he_
supposed to know what was underage in weasel years?
    Well, there was no getting around it. He could
afford the loss of Willowy Weasel, but he'd need to get
a new animal singer. And _fast_.

***

    On the way to the Hard to Find City, Teddy Ruxpin
and Grubby ran into a host of lovely wood sprites.
    "Hello," squeaked one of the tiny, winged women,
"we are a host of lovely wood sprites. Would you like to
watch reruns of "All in the Family," with us?
    Teddy thought that was a great idea, because he
liked these wood sprites and that Archie Bunker really
cracked him up. But Grubby had reservations.
    "I dunno, Teddy... these here lovely wood sprites
seem awfully pe-cul�ar ta me."
    Teddy was about to tell the retarded bug to go
screw himself, but then he realized that Grubby, in his
simplicity, might take that suggestion seriously.
Shuddering, he decided to make a gentler reply.
    "What's so odd about them, Grubby?"
    "Well, fer starters... and I'm not saying nothin'
fer sure, mind ya... there seem to be a hecko' a lot
of fest�rin� corpses, 'round here."
    Teddy looked around. There were indeed very many
dead and rotting humans lying around. Not only that, but
the lovely wood sprites were swarming all over them.
    "Hey, what's with all the stiffs?" asked Teddy
Ruxpin.
    "'Stiffs'?" wondered the lovely wood sprite that
had addressed them, following Teddy's gaze. "Oh, you
mean, _them_. Um... those are bushes. Yes, very odd
looking bushes."
    Grubby shrugged his shoulders. "I guess that
explains it, Teddy. A-yep."
    But Teddy was not so easily dissuaded. "Those
aren't bushes," he decided. "Those are dead people. I
should know, because when I was a kid, my dad would to
dig them up and put them in my bed when I was asleep."
    "Oh, all right, so they're corpses," admitted a
dejected lovely wood sprite. "So what?"
    "Well, what do you need them for?"
    "They're necessary for our reproduction," she
explained. "We lay our eggs in them so that when the
lovely wood sprite maggots hatch, they'll have something
to eat."
    Teddy and Grubby boggled in revulsion.
    "I know it sounds disgusting, but the maggots are
really cute. Honest."
    Well, Teddy thought, I guess it's not my place to
criticize other cultures.
    Then he noticed something. There were no TVs in
sight.
    "Hey, if baby lovely wood sprites eat the rotten
flesh of dead humans... what do adult lovely wood
sprites eat?"
    The miniscule woman smiled nervously, revealing
rows of tiny, sharp teeth.

***

    "Hey!" cried Tsurugi. "I'm all nutsy, too! Let me
be in this fic! Pleeease! Look, I'm naked, and thrashing
around, and breaking things and stuff!
YAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
    No.

***

    Feverishly, Teddy brought his arm down upon the
last of the lovely wood sprites again and again until it
was little more than a tiny, red mess on the bright green
grass. Ripping the arm off to use as a weapon had been
easy, as he had only reattached it with duct tape.
    "Golly," swore Grubby, staring down at the
numerous painful little wounds covering his furry flesh.
"Them lovely wood sprite ladies, uh... sure did turn all
mean pretty quick."
    "Yeah," agreed Teddy, wiping the blood and sweat
from his brow. Who knew that adult lovely wood sprites
strictly dieted on giant caterpillars and robot bears?
    "I guess that's that," suggested Teddy, giving the
slaughtered lovely wood sprites a few heavy stomps for
good measure. "Let's go off to the city, Grubby!"
    Hand in hand, the two friends frolicked to their
destiny.

***

This was originally a "joke" entry for ImproFanfic's
(www.improfanfic.com) Starter Sweepstakes contest.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't win. But surprisingly, it
was actually picked up by an "Indie Impro" site shortly
thereafter. Of course, conventional wisdom soon prevailed
and in a merger with another site, and Ruxpin was dropped
like abag of freeze dried pets. I can't really blame them,
but since I went through the trouble of going over the damn
thing and correcting all my botched pop-culture references
anyway, I thought I might present it for the "enjoyment" of
all those non-Impro reading FFMLers out there. There, now
aren't you glad I did?... Aren't you?....... Please put down
that fire poker.


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