FIC: Disoriented, Demented, and a Little Nuts
Two things.
1. pearl_o and I have been playing the best game EVER. It is called HOT CELEBRITY CAGE MATCH!!! and you should all go play.
2. The picfor1000 fics are due today. The 1000-word version is up at the comm, but the 1500 word extended remix version is right here:
Title: Disoriented, Demented, and a Little Nuts
Author: Amy (alexia@innergeekdom.net)
Fandom: Muppets/Canadian RPF. Mostly BSG and SGA, with some others thrown in. Um, I'm really sorry, if that helps at all.
Summary: A meta-statement on the culture of fandom and celebrity. With felt.
Notes: I'm not sure who I've decided to blame, but I blame them a LOT. scrunchy and pearl_o and tellitslant and joran and lynnmathews are all at least partly to blame, though.
Title from "Cabin Fever", from Muppet Treasure Island.
For picfor1000; image is here. 1000-word version is here.
1,500 words.
Kermit said that they were moving the filming of their latest feature to Canada because too many of the Muppets hadn't seen the world. It was, he said, beautiful to see a foreign country. Important. Life-changing.
Cheaper.
It wasn't so much the location, or the housing, or even the dollars-to-Canadians ratio. It was the actors.
Kermit already knew Ben and Claudia. They'd been on Farscape, and Kermit was good friends with Horace, who had been working there as Rygel. Out of that friendship, Ben and Claudia had agreed to help him find a house for everyone, not to mention agreed to brief cameo appearances for free. When Kermit had thanked them profusely, they'd said that he brought some excitement to Vancouver for once, and it would be worth every minute.
Kermit signed autographs for all of Ben's kids, who, he assured him, were big fans, but could he maybe sign Miss Piggy's name instead? Kermit ended up getting Piggy to take a picture with Ben, who blushed bright red and insisted he didn't know what to say and said he wasn't sure what his wife would think.
And that was one thing, and it was fine, because that was a mutually beneficial arrangement. But Kermit hadn't realized that, once you left Hollywood, a talking, singing, dancing group of bears, pigs, frogs, dogs, prawns, and whatevers were not something you'd see everywhere you went. In fact, they were kind of celebrities.
To everyone.
Hewlett was the first one. He approached Kermit in the grocery store.
"Excuse me," he said, and he stuttered a little, fumbled with his words. "Mr. Frog?"
"Hi-ho," Kermit said politely. "Can I help you?"
"Oh my god, you're actually talking to me! I, I'm Dave. David. David Hewlett."
"Pleased to meet you, Dave-David-David Hewlett. I'm Kermit the Frog."
They shook hand and flipper.
"I am," Dave-David-David Hewlett said, "your biggest fan."
"It's always nice to meet people who like the show," Kermit said carefully.
"Hey, could you sign this?" he asked, and he held out his wallet, which Kermit could now see was a limited edition Muppets 25th Anniversary Special one. "To David," the man added shyly.
Kermit signed with a flourish.
"You know," he added, "I work on this show that shoots around here. And we all, we really love your work. I mean, really, it's some of our favorite stuff out there. We can never get enough of how much craft, how much art..."
"So you're in the business?" Kermit asked.
"Actor. I'm on Stargate Atlantis."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I thought you meant you were on a television show."
"We're on the Sci Fi Channel," David explained.
"Oh. Then I'm really sorry."
In the end, David persuaded him to agree to a cameo in the movie; he had done, David swore, loads of independent films, and was a true artist who would brighten any picture he was in. And as long as he was going to let David in, could his friend Paulie come too? Paulie, he swore, was a true actor. And a wrestler. And unlike that pussy Joe Flanigan, he wasn't allergic to felt.
Mostly, Kermit agreed to make him go away.
Katee Sackhoff was the next one. Kermit had taken to wearing a trench coat and glasses as a cunning disguise, but the thin blonde woman still threw her arms around him and squealed his name.
Kermit gulped audibly. "How did you recognize me?" he asked sadly. "I was wearing a disguise."
"You're two feet tall and green," she said. "We don't get a lot of those in Vancouver."
"Oh." Kermit decided to save the lecture about racial profiling for later. He signed her jacket, and promised to tug on his ear in the next live show as a sign to say hi to her. He figured by the time it aired, she'd forget, or else she'd notice frogs didn't have ears. Either way, he figured he'd won.
He met David's friend Paulie ("Paul," he insisted with a sheepish grin after Kermit, Fozzie, and Rizzo had signed autographs for him. "Just Paul. Like the Beatle."), as well as Torri, Rachel, and Jason, three days later, when they decided to come watch the Muppets filming. "We stopped filming to see you," Rachel informed him shyly. "Everyone wanted to come down."
"Except Mitch," Jason said. Jason didn't seem to care much one way or another. He'd had Kermit autograph his bag of Cheetos.
"Except Mitch," she agreed, "because he thinks he's a real actor. And Joe, because he's allergic."
"How can you be allergic to felt?" Torri asked.
"Joe is magic," David said solemnly. Then they all started laughing, like it was an ongoing joke.
Well, everyone except Jason. He ate more Cheetos.
The whole Atlantis cast shot two scenes that they wrote on the spot. Neither scene actually made sense, but as it was the Muppets, and they were the cast of Stargate Atlantis, no one seemed to notice or mind. Rachel taught Miss Piggy how to fight with sticks, which sent Kermit into hiding for a few days. Jason invited the Electric Mayhem into his trailer, where they bonded, although no one would ever say over exactly what, except to years later point out that the tabloid rumors were in no way true, because Jason had a fiancé and really, everyone involved understood that the sixties had to stay in the sixties.
It was like that on set for a while. In fact, Kermit was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Canadian actors would do anything for exposure. One day, a Winnebago showed up outside the gates, and after three hours of trying to determine if they were homeless bums or just aimless, Gonzo finally recognized one of them from Last Night, which he said was on his Top Five Hundred Disaster Movies list. The twelve actors who spilled out were from in and around Toronto, they explained, and except for Callum, who had a guest spot on something, they were all there just to meet the Muppets.
Kermit signed so many autographs, his right flipper was sore.
The only people who the Muppets met in the months of filming that left them star-struck were Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, and it turned out that the admiration was mutual. Mary had been a huge fan since the Muppet Show, and Eddie insisted he'd loved Rowlf since his first Purina commercial. Mary happily signed Gonzo's copy of Independence Day, and Eddie autographed Pepe's copy of Selena, and none of them could have been happier with the whole arrangement. The photograph of Mary and Eddie surrounded by all of the Muppets showed up in Entertainment Weekly four days later, and everyone was thrilled, from the PR representatives to the executive producers to the Canadian Tourist Bureau. Even Ron was happy, and Ron, Mary informed them with a grin, was never happy. Which she seemed a lot prouder about than Kermit thought the nice woman who had very sweetly asked all of the Muppets to sign an autograph for her friend Katie's friend T.R. probably should have been.
They had a cameo too, Eddie and Mary in a short scene with Katee and Jamie alongside Kermit and Piggy. Three parallel couples, Mary had said, where the woman is completely in charge, and she and Katee and Piggy had laughed a lot harder than Jamie or Eddie or Kermit. When they were done shooting, Katee looked at Kermit confusedly for a minute, like she had something she wanted to ask, but then just shook her head and walked away. Jamie was British and no one understood him anyway, except for the Swedish Chef, with whom he appeared to form a deep and meaningful connection.
They finished shooting on a Monday, and spent the rest of the week in Vancouver, just relaxing. Piggy's friend Tricia from her modeling days helped get her the role as Cylon Number Eleven on Battlestar Galactica, which Piggy insisted was more impressive than it sounded. Pepe represented an entire planet of what David described as "really really awesome kind of shrimp-like creatures" in a very special episode which, Kermit was pretty sure they hadn't told Pepe, ended with the cast dining on seafood. But most of them just lounged around. Fozzie said he hadn't been happier since the last time he hibernated.
When they left, everyone was there to say goodbye: Ben and Claudia, Mary and Eddie, Katee and Jamie, David and Paulie, and Torri, Rachel, and Jason too. Everyone waved goodbye and promised to write (which none of them, except Jason and Janis, actually followed through on, and those letters would haunt them through years of Entertainment Tonight stories that were vicious, vicious lies), and soon the Muppets were on their way back to the states.
Kermit was pretty sure that, if the movie did well, they'd never return to Vancouver again. He loved Hollywood too much.
But it sure was a nice place to have as a spare.
1. pearl_o and I have been playing the best game EVER. It is called HOT CELEBRITY CAGE MATCH!!! and you should all go play.
2. The picfor1000 fics are due today. The 1000-word version is up at the comm, but the 1500 word extended remix version is right here:
Title: Disoriented, Demented, and a Little Nuts
Author: Amy (alexia@innergeekdom.net)
Fandom: Muppets/Canadian RPF. Mostly BSG and SGA, with some others thrown in. Um, I'm really sorry, if that helps at all.
Summary: A meta-statement on the culture of fandom and celebrity. With felt.
Notes: I'm not sure who I've decided to blame, but I blame them a LOT. scrunchy and pearl_o and tellitslant and joran and lynnmathews are all at least partly to blame, though.
Title from "Cabin Fever", from Muppet Treasure Island.
For picfor1000; image is here. 1000-word version is here.
1,500 words.
Kermit said that they were moving the filming of their latest feature to Canada because too many of the Muppets hadn't seen the world. It was, he said, beautiful to see a foreign country. Important. Life-changing.
Cheaper.
It wasn't so much the location, or the housing, or even the dollars-to-Canadians ratio. It was the actors.
Kermit already knew Ben and Claudia. They'd been on Farscape, and Kermit was good friends with Horace, who had been working there as Rygel. Out of that friendship, Ben and Claudia had agreed to help him find a house for everyone, not to mention agreed to brief cameo appearances for free. When Kermit had thanked them profusely, they'd said that he brought some excitement to Vancouver for once, and it would be worth every minute.
Kermit signed autographs for all of Ben's kids, who, he assured him, were big fans, but could he maybe sign Miss Piggy's name instead? Kermit ended up getting Piggy to take a picture with Ben, who blushed bright red and insisted he didn't know what to say and said he wasn't sure what his wife would think.
And that was one thing, and it was fine, because that was a mutually beneficial arrangement. But Kermit hadn't realized that, once you left Hollywood, a talking, singing, dancing group of bears, pigs, frogs, dogs, prawns, and whatevers were not something you'd see everywhere you went. In fact, they were kind of celebrities.
To everyone.
Hewlett was the first one. He approached Kermit in the grocery store.
"Excuse me," he said, and he stuttered a little, fumbled with his words. "Mr. Frog?"
"Hi-ho," Kermit said politely. "Can I help you?"
"Oh my god, you're actually talking to me! I, I'm Dave. David. David Hewlett."
"Pleased to meet you, Dave-David-David Hewlett. I'm Kermit the Frog."
They shook hand and flipper.
"I am," Dave-David-David Hewlett said, "your biggest fan."
"It's always nice to meet people who like the show," Kermit said carefully.
"Hey, could you sign this?" he asked, and he held out his wallet, which Kermit could now see was a limited edition Muppets 25th Anniversary Special one. "To David," the man added shyly.
Kermit signed with a flourish.
"You know," he added, "I work on this show that shoots around here. And we all, we really love your work. I mean, really, it's some of our favorite stuff out there. We can never get enough of how much craft, how much art..."
"So you're in the business?" Kermit asked.
"Actor. I'm on Stargate Atlantis."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I thought you meant you were on a television show."
"We're on the Sci Fi Channel," David explained.
"Oh. Then I'm really sorry."
In the end, David persuaded him to agree to a cameo in the movie; he had done, David swore, loads of independent films, and was a true artist who would brighten any picture he was in. And as long as he was going to let David in, could his friend Paulie come too? Paulie, he swore, was a true actor. And a wrestler. And unlike that pussy Joe Flanigan, he wasn't allergic to felt.
Mostly, Kermit agreed to make him go away.
Katee Sackhoff was the next one. Kermit had taken to wearing a trench coat and glasses as a cunning disguise, but the thin blonde woman still threw her arms around him and squealed his name.
Kermit gulped audibly. "How did you recognize me?" he asked sadly. "I was wearing a disguise."
"You're two feet tall and green," she said. "We don't get a lot of those in Vancouver."
"Oh." Kermit decided to save the lecture about racial profiling for later. He signed her jacket, and promised to tug on his ear in the next live show as a sign to say hi to her. He figured by the time it aired, she'd forget, or else she'd notice frogs didn't have ears. Either way, he figured he'd won.
He met David's friend Paulie ("Paul," he insisted with a sheepish grin after Kermit, Fozzie, and Rizzo had signed autographs for him. "Just Paul. Like the Beatle."), as well as Torri, Rachel, and Jason, three days later, when they decided to come watch the Muppets filming. "We stopped filming to see you," Rachel informed him shyly. "Everyone wanted to come down."
"Except Mitch," Jason said. Jason didn't seem to care much one way or another. He'd had Kermit autograph his bag of Cheetos.
"Except Mitch," she agreed, "because he thinks he's a real actor. And Joe, because he's allergic."
"How can you be allergic to felt?" Torri asked.
"Joe is magic," David said solemnly. Then they all started laughing, like it was an ongoing joke.
Well, everyone except Jason. He ate more Cheetos.
The whole Atlantis cast shot two scenes that they wrote on the spot. Neither scene actually made sense, but as it was the Muppets, and they were the cast of Stargate Atlantis, no one seemed to notice or mind. Rachel taught Miss Piggy how to fight with sticks, which sent Kermit into hiding for a few days. Jason invited the Electric Mayhem into his trailer, where they bonded, although no one would ever say over exactly what, except to years later point out that the tabloid rumors were in no way true, because Jason had a fiancé and really, everyone involved understood that the sixties had to stay in the sixties.
It was like that on set for a while. In fact, Kermit was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Canadian actors would do anything for exposure. One day, a Winnebago showed up outside the gates, and after three hours of trying to determine if they were homeless bums or just aimless, Gonzo finally recognized one of them from Last Night, which he said was on his Top Five Hundred Disaster Movies list. The twelve actors who spilled out were from in and around Toronto, they explained, and except for Callum, who had a guest spot on something, they were all there just to meet the Muppets.
Kermit signed so many autographs, his right flipper was sore.
The only people who the Muppets met in the months of filming that left them star-struck were Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, and it turned out that the admiration was mutual. Mary had been a huge fan since the Muppet Show, and Eddie insisted he'd loved Rowlf since his first Purina commercial. Mary happily signed Gonzo's copy of Independence Day, and Eddie autographed Pepe's copy of Selena, and none of them could have been happier with the whole arrangement. The photograph of Mary and Eddie surrounded by all of the Muppets showed up in Entertainment Weekly four days later, and everyone was thrilled, from the PR representatives to the executive producers to the Canadian Tourist Bureau. Even Ron was happy, and Ron, Mary informed them with a grin, was never happy. Which she seemed a lot prouder about than Kermit thought the nice woman who had very sweetly asked all of the Muppets to sign an autograph for her friend Katie's friend T.R. probably should have been.
They had a cameo too, Eddie and Mary in a short scene with Katee and Jamie alongside Kermit and Piggy. Three parallel couples, Mary had said, where the woman is completely in charge, and she and Katee and Piggy had laughed a lot harder than Jamie or Eddie or Kermit. When they were done shooting, Katee looked at Kermit confusedly for a minute, like she had something she wanted to ask, but then just shook her head and walked away. Jamie was British and no one understood him anyway, except for the Swedish Chef, with whom he appeared to form a deep and meaningful connection.
They finished shooting on a Monday, and spent the rest of the week in Vancouver, just relaxing. Piggy's friend Tricia from her modeling days helped get her the role as Cylon Number Eleven on Battlestar Galactica, which Piggy insisted was more impressive than it sounded. Pepe represented an entire planet of what David described as "really really awesome kind of shrimp-like creatures" in a very special episode which, Kermit was pretty sure they hadn't told Pepe, ended with the cast dining on seafood. But most of them just lounged around. Fozzie said he hadn't been happier since the last time he hibernated.
When they left, everyone was there to say goodbye: Ben and Claudia, Mary and Eddie, Katee and Jamie, David and Paulie, and Torri, Rachel, and Jason too. Everyone waved goodbye and promised to write (which none of them, except Jason and Janis, actually followed through on, and those letters would haunt them through years of Entertainment Tonight stories that were vicious, vicious lies), and soon the Muppets were on their way back to the states.
Kermit was pretty sure that, if the movie did well, they'd never return to Vancouver again. He loved Hollywood too much.
But it sure was a nice place to have as a spare.