Poor Dough Boy

The follow sick-and-twisted bit, if done live action, should be shot with surreal, fisheye lens photography and garish colors...if animated try a Tex Avery/Kricfalusi twist...

Aw, what the fuck. Forget I said that.

This has to be animated...

Open, CU inside car. Ambiant traffic sounds, engine noises. Beautiful dressed-in-red woman (who looks suspiciously like the Cool World doodle version of Kim Bassinger to me), looking in rearview mirror applying lipstick to enormous, gorgeous, yumyum lips. Light changes to green. She goes forward. Camera goes down and out behind some obstacle. The screen goes fuzzy black and we can't see her anymore. We hear traffic sounds, squeaky moans of frustration, brakes -- and then our POV goes back over the obstacle and we see the beautiful driver again.

And we realize there is someone inside the bag who wants to see...

Go to POV inside the car, arcing past the driver to a grocery bag where the camera converges on a cylindrical container of crescent roll dough, the grinning albinoid humunculoid mug of the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY emblazoned thereupon. Camera goes closer. We see that the container is glistening with what looks like tiny beads of sweat.

Go: INT, kitchen. WOMAN enters with grocery bag, thumps it down on kitchen countertop.

WOMAN: Oww...my back.

She stretches...luxuriantly. Does a few neck rolls.

Go to grocery bag. We hear whining noises from the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY.

WOMAN does another twist, another head roll. We hear a crack...

WOMAN: Ahhhh....that felt good.

Go to: static shot grocery bag. Frustrated, whining noises...

WOMAN strides on over to her answering machine with a seductive, clack-clack ankle-strap wedgie walk. Clicks it on...

CHILD: (girl's voice) Mom! I'm spending like the night at Chrissie's like you said, OK, so make sure the school gets the money tomorrow and tape Southpark, OK?

MAN: (dumb, redneck voice) Honey? Listen, uh, sorry, but me in the boys we got like...you know. Anyway's something come up and looks like the hunting trip'll be another day or two, you know. But I surely miss you, honey.

WOMAN: (blowing hair off her forehead) Damn.

She's disappointed. We realize instantly that she was expecting this guy back -- which is why the fancy red dress and (but for the crescent rolls) bag full of microwaveable no-cooking required food, along with arrangements to get rid of the kid for the night. She was planning a dinner. She was planning an evening. She was planning on a little badabingbadaboom, goddamnit. Crazy as it may seem, she still feels that way...

She walks back across the kitchen with her seductive walk...

More desperate sounds from the grocery bag.

The WOMAN leans over, peers into grocery bag. We see her face -- DOUGHBOY's POV -- in extreme, full-lipped closeup...

WOMAN: You're cute, anybody ever tell you that?

She makes a kissy-face.

Pulls out the cylindrical container...sets it down on the counter.

As if he could watch her from there...

Because she's going to give him a show.

She walks away a short distance. Stops.

WOMAN: Ever get lonely in there, huh? Pillsbury Doughboy ever get lonely? Pillsbury Doughboy ever want to be a Pillsbury Doughman?

And, in one of those embarassing moments of private fantasy that folks in bad relationships sometimes indulge in, she starts doing a striptease -- bumping, grinding, fluffing up her hair, sliding up and down the fridge like a pole at Club O -- as she peels off her clothes one by one and does her best to put on a show of intense sexual display for the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY (the additional, graphic details of which I leave to the diseased imagination of all of you people and the storyboard artists). Soundtrack starts playing the take-it-all-off music of her fantasies...

Go to: writhing cannister of dough on the counter...bulging whitely at the seams...

And the music just stops. The WOMAN walks closer, in fisheye distortion indicating the DOUGHBOY's POV.

WOMAN: Well that's one way to get a workout. You too? (wicked smile) Guess you'd better cool off, huh? (with Marilyn Monroe breathy intensity) Night...

With red-nailed hand she picks up the DOUGHBOY container -- tosses him in the fridge's freezer. Closes the door.

Go to black.

Cut to the bread-shaped kitchen clock ticking and tocking in lap dissolve from 10:30...to 1:45. And we hear...

Groaning noises, the sound of straining.

Go to shot of fridge. More gutteral noises from within. Is the DOUGHBOY whacking off? Nope. Turns out he's pushing the freezer door open with superdoughboy effort. Succeeds...

His tiny little form leaps out. He ambles forward, doll-like, on computer-animated footless legs of dough.

It's at this point we realize that there's a theme going in the decorations in this house. The kitchen clock looks like a loaf of bread. There's a decorative basket of glazed wax phony baguettes on the kitchen table. The coasters on the coffeetable look like pieces of toast...

The DOUGHBOY advances.

CU: his face. A twisted, smirking, quivering leer.

He walks down the hall. Into the bedroom. Opens door.

From DOUGHBOY's POV we cross the distance from door to bed. Like a rat he leaps, squirms under the sheets. We see the DOUGHBOY's bulge moving...

Go to shot from above of WOMAN in bed. Neutral expression on face. Then a smile creeps up. Noise of crinkling sheets. She shifts a little, making mmmmmm noises, subsiding, then going mmmmm with greater intensity...mmmmm...mmmmmm.....

Morning light. WOMAN looking at bathroom mirror. She seems to be covered with flour.

WOMAN: Wha?

Go to: INT, bright cold light of medical office. 2-shot WOMAN and DOCTOR -- the GYNECOLOGIST.

GYNECOLOGIST: (nervous) I'm afraid it's yet another yeast infection.

WOMAN: What?

GYNECOLOGIST: Y-yeast infection.

WOMAN: That's the third time this year!

GYNECOLOGIST: Well, sometimes these little guys are very p-persistant. (handing her a bottle of pills) Take this..these. And do your best to get rid of any and all wheat, yeast and bread products...

Go to INT -- home. The WOMAN's at the door. About to leave. We see a MAN there -- obviously her husband. Big, tall, strapping guy in plaid hunter's jacket. He's not happy.

MAN: Whaddya mean you gotta go? I just got back.

WOMAN: It's group.

MAN: Yeah but this here's family. And how come you got...

WOMAN: (putting hand to her lips than his) Later...hmmm. And get rid of the bread products?

MAN: (shuffling feet, giving in) Well...OK.

And she's out the door.

Sound: tickticktocking of clock.

Pan past kitchen trash can full of bread, rolls, breadsticks to tired-looking MAN at kitchen table.

MAN: (muttering to himself) Something's up here...I dunno...something's not...

Sound: tickticktocking of clock.

MAN looks up. He sees -- and we see -- that the clock is shaped like a loaf of bread. Go to his eyes, which narrow suspiciously. He looks around --

To the toast-shaped coasters --

To the phony baguettes --

To ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped like white and black loaves of bread --

To an unmistakeable pattern of white dots on the tile floor.

MAN grunts.

Leaping, with exaggerated whooshing noise, he gets down on his knees and eyeballs the floor. Frowns, twisting up his face, puzzled. Leaps up -- to the kitchen drawer -- gets flashlight -- goes back to look --

In circle of light on tile grid we see what he sees: a powdery dot pattern leading away from the kitchen --

MAN looks up --

-- to the bedroom door.

Looks down again.

MAN's face twists up with the agony of thinking. Nothing articulate comes out of him, just grunts, noises, sentence fragments...

MAN: Whuzzat? Goddamn little...uh? Looks like little...nah? Uh-uh. Can't be. Mmmmm. But it sure looks like. Uggghhh...

...until the unthinkable idea develops like a nasty little Polaroid Swinger snapshot into an image of unmistakeable clarity in his mind.

MAN: (face exploding with the knowledge) FOOTYprints!

He turns red. We see teeth, clenched in rage.

Looks back down at the footprints. Tracks.

Refrigerator -- to bedroom.

Bedroom -- to refrigerator.

MAN bellows like a bull. Bolts up, leaps to fridge, throws open freezer door.

POV, inside freezer. Darkness. Then light. MAN outside glaring in. Inside, in foreground, a spiralled-open cylinder of dough, its occupant missing.

Hand reaches in, grabs. MAN's face going to pieces in all directions: a fragmented symphony of hatred, barely holding together. Hand holding dough container shaking, another hand grabs, also shaking. Slowly, the two hands twist in opposite directions, spiralling the opened package back to its original, unpopped-open form. The shaking stops. Hold a beat: on a package of crescent rolls with the blackbutton eyes and toothless mouth of the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY's smiling, waving form now clear to see in all its apparent asexual innocence.

Go to longshot of the house from outside: we hear a howl of rage and knowledge.

Inside: burly hand pulling shotgun out of guncase.

Like JACK NICHOLSON in "the Shining" the MAN stalks the house in feral rage.

Quick cuts of his silhouetted, rifle-toting form --

Framed in utility room doorway.

In the TV room doorway...

Child's room...

MAN -- rummaging through closet crammed with kid's toys. He sees ET. Shoots ET.

CHILD: Daddy you promised!

MAN: Sorry.

He runs off. And his death-bringing silhouette appears in --

The TV room.

The bathroom doorway...

CU laundry hamper. Dark then light. MAN peering in.

CHILD (off): What is it, Daddy? What's the matter?

MAN: It's OK, hon. Daddy's just killing the Pillsbury Doughboy. Go back to bed.

CHILD: OK.

Cut to: PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY, gasping for breath in dollhouse. He puts on a pair of little shoes. This should get an awwwww out of the audience. Then he looks at us, grinning at his own cleverness.

PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY: (covering mouth with hand) Tee-hee.

MAN: (hears sound -- reacts like hypersensitive animal) Huh?

PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY runs across huge space of living room.

MAN turns, runs, cocks rifle.

PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY climbing up a cabinet...

MAN running, roaring...

Go to: INT, conventional oven. Rectangular glass window showing kitchen beyond. Shards of pizza crust and grease at the bottom. Huddled in a corner, the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY hides.

PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY: (looking at camera) Last place he'd ever look. Hee-hee.

MAN'S face in oven window. Door opens. DOUGHBOY chokes with fear.

MAN: One in the oven, huh?

Oven door opens. The MAN's enormous, hairy hand goes in -- grabs the DOUGHBOY who screams, flailing.

MAN: You know how this ends, dontcha?

DOUGHBOY: (screaming, because he knows...) No...please...

MAN: (looking out at the movie theater audience) And you people. You know how YOU want it to end.

DOUGHBOY: Don't!

MAN: Well let's put it to a fucking vote just like Tinkerbell. (looking out at audience) So tell me, folks. All you who wants me to let the little fucker go applaud. (hold a beat) Now everybody applaud who wants to see me throw this dickless wonder in the microwave.

(hold a beat and, of course, America votes to fry the DOUGHBOY)

Go to INT, microwave. Door opens. Hand throws DOUGHBOY in. The little guy runs to get out, but it's too late. The cold, white, enamelled door slams shut. He's trapped behind another, colder, gridded window with the MAN looking in...

Cut to DOUGHBOY's POV of the MAN's twisted, malicious face laughing huhuhuhehhh.

EXT, kitchen. The MAN's hand goes to the microwave button panel, punches up "Nuclear Holocaust."

The killing light goes on.

DOUGHBOY: (feeling it) Fuck. This is worse than Scanners.

Sound: doorbell dingdong. Go to livingroom. Front door opens...

WOMAN: (coming in) I'm back!

MAN: (ritualistically) How was group?

WOMAN: (shrugging, tired) Group was group. You get rid of all the bread products?

CHILD: Yeah, uh-huh. And Daddy killed the Pillsbury Doughboy.

WOMAN: (mock scolding) Oh did he?

Go to INT Microwave. DOUGHBOY dying in graphic agony.

CHILD: And he shot ET too.

WOMAN: Well...naughty bad Daddy! (playfully slapping him on shoulder)

MAN: (mock hangdog) Sorry.

WOMAN: Oh you.

Go to DOUGHBOY --

DOUGHBOY: Pain...too much pain...

WOMAN laughs. Everybody laughs.

WOMAN: God I love you guys. It's good to be family.

Go to DOUGHBOY carbonizing in the posture of a Buddhist monk.

MAN: (whispering to himself) Again.

WOMAN: Huh?

MAN: Bearhugs!

The child squeals. MAN and CHILD clinch on WOMAN in a big huggy cluster. Off camera, we hear a ding.

Go to all-white. Nostalgic "Nothin' sez lovin' like somethin' from the oven" theme plays. Credits roll. Black on white.

WOMAN: Lights!

CHILD: Sor-ry.

Background turns black -- white on black text scrolling up.

MAN walks across frame chewing on crunchy breadstick...or sumpin.

Credits continue to roll. Off-camera we hear...

WOMAN: (sexual) Night dear.

SOUND: The DOUGHBOY's signature "tee-hee."

Soundbite: "Eeee! Eeee!" from Psycho theme.