Mission Impossible 9: The Multiplying MacGuffins

INTERIOR: DAY

A man sits at a desk, looking steely and determined. This is JIM. Another man enters. This is JOHN.

JOHN: Sir, we have a situation.

JIM: Any arrangement of people or objects is a situation. You’ll have to be more specific.

JOHN: I feel that’s unnecessarily pedantic, sir.

JIM: So noted. What’ve you got?

JOHN: It’s the MacGuffins, sir. They’re out of control.

JIM: Dammit, John, I didn’t go to film school. What the hell’s a MacGuffin?

JOHN: It’s the thing everyone in the movie’s trying to get hold of. The details are always a little vague, but basically if the bad guys get it, it’s the end of the world.

JIM: I see. And we’re the good guys?

JOHN: Well, this movie’s for an American audience, so yes. 

JIM: So what’s the problem?

JOHN: The MacGuffin's are multiplying, sir. There used to be just one per movie, but recently there have been two, three or even more. And not only do we have to get hold of them, we have to combine them in ridiculously precise ways to avert disaster.

JIM: We’d better call in the All-American Hero.

JOHN: He’s not available, sir, but we have the nerdy but likeable sidekick. Come in, Simon.

SIMON enters

SIMON: Good morning, sir. I’ve been looking into…

JIM quickly reaches into his desk drawer, pulls out a Glock and tries to shoot SIMON, who dives behind a sofa for cover

JOHN: Sir, what the hell are you doing?

JIM: Can’t you hear his British accent? He’s the bad guy!

SIMON: English, actually…

JOHN: No, sir, we’re letting Brits play the sidekick these days.

JIM: We are?

JOHN: For a few years now.

JIM: Dammit, why wasn’t I told?

JOHN: Anyway Simon, you were saying?

SIMON: It’s bad, sir. I’ve looked at the design of the bomb, which implausibly was available on the internet, and it seems to stop it going off we have to get hold of eight different things with ridiculous names and activate them all at exactly the same time. What’s more, one of the people doing it must be halfway up a mountain in the Andes, the second in a shopping centre in Milton Keynes, the third must be dressed in Swiss national costume, the fourth must be named Arthur but prefer to go by his middle name, the fifth must have been born on a Tuesday, the sixth must have a long-lost brother he never speaks to, the seventh must have reached at least Grade 5 in a woodwind instrument but given up playing it years ago, and the eighth must be a distant cousin of one of the others but not realise it. Well don’t look at me like that, I didn’t write the bloody script - I’d hardly have given myself such a pathetic and unrewarding part, would I?

JOHN and JIM collapse from the effects of the nerve agent SIMON surreptitiously released. He peels off his face mask, revealing that he is in fact the All-American Hero.

A-AH: Or would I?

Picture credit: Deep Dream Generator

Spaceship to recover lost TV episodes

Billionaire Tech Bro Jeff Bezos is planning to recover lost TV episodes from space.

He claims that TV programmes originally broadcast in the fifties and sixties, for which no recordings exist, ‘can be recovered from space’.  The theory is that the original broadcast signals are still travelling out in deep space and that, if you have a fast enough spaceship, then you could get ahead of the signals in time to record them for posterity.

Blue Origin is building a new and super-fast rocket that will be able to find and record lost episodes of Dad’s Army, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son.  The company also hopes to recover some old American TV programmes, but who cares about those?  Blue Origin is offering to find and record the old shows as an important service to humanity, but also to boost audiences on Prime TV, as it’s cheaper than making new shows.

‘These sitcoms are enormously important records of British culture in the 1960s,’ said a spokesperson who hardly looked 19, never mind 60, and clearly knew nothing about old British TV classics.  ‘Modern technology can recover these lost programmes and monetise them for future generations.’

There are rumours of a deal with the BBC that will allow the recovered shows to be broadcast in Britain for free, in return for the rights to re-broadcast them around the world on pay TV.  Who knew that the BBC could be that savvy?

A spokesman for Jeff Bezos reiterated the importance of the mission. ‘The jokes may not have aged well. The jokes could be racist, misogynist and anti-trans.   But a little controversy never hurt sales, so we are happy to rescue Britain once again – this time by saving their beloved, low-budget, and funny-for-reasons-that-Americans-don’t-understand TV sitcoms.’

Image credit: deep dream generator

Dr Seuss to publish Trump transcripts

The White House has decided that transcripts of President Trump’s incoherent announcements and rambling speeches will no longer be published in the official database. That way, nobody will be able to go back through what he said to determine whether he told the truth or recognised the US Constitution at any point.

However, an unofficial record of The Donald’s descent from idiocy to imbecility will be generated by children’s author Dr Seuss. It is said that he was chosen as he is used to writing nonsense in very short sentences using a tiny vocabulary.

An example, on tariffs:

I do not like this Chinese stuff,

They do not make it dear enough,

It's awful tat and plastic guff,

The USA don't need this stuff

We don't want it to come by plane,

We don't want it to come by train,

We don't want it to come by boat,

We don't want it to come by goat

My tariffs are a super fix,

No more tat for Tik Tok chicks,

I do not like green eggs and ham,

I'll tax them 'cos I'm Uncle Sam.

Dr Seuss denied that he would be adding titles to the entries. He said that The MAGA Twat In The Hat, Fox News On The Box and No Cheap Eggs Or Ham are to be published separately. And unlike anything uttered by President Trump, they will have some basis in fact.

Hat tip to deskpilot

Image credit: deep dream generator