Pudgy was barking like mad. “What is it Pudgy?” asked Koko the Clown. Pudgy jumped stiff-legged straight up and down yapping a rapid-fire burst of piercing kyoodles that sounded like a Boston Terrier saying, “Boop-boop-ba-doop.”
“Betty Boop?” Koko asked, one hand on his forehead, the other akimbo. Pudgy nodded, eyes brightening. Koko rocked on his heels at a diagonal from which it should have been impossible to right himself. “Betty Boop is missing?” There was a boing, boing, boing.
Pudgy started barking and leaping again and then dashed off toward the midway. When he returned he was more animated than ever, jerking his head in the direction of the circus tents.
“I doubt it, Pudgy. You know how popular Betty is. She’s probably off flying around with Superman or something.” Koko sighed. Like everyone, Koko had a crush on Betty Boop.
But Pudgy wouldn’t listen. His yips and yaps escalated in frequency and pitch as he pointed his nose toward the distant canvas tent sidings. Their contrasting blacks and whites billowed and sagged in opposing festoons.
“Okay Pudgy, whatever you say.” The clown pointed his colossal clodhoppers in the direction of the midway, his bumbling gait barely keeping up with Pudgy’s frenzied scuttle. As the calliope’s stilted descant crept first into Pudgy’s audition and then the clown’s, the bleakness of the familiar circus landscape made an eerie impression on them both.
Hadn’t there been a Pitch-Till-U-Win booth just to the rear of the big top? Wasn’t there a fifty-foot Ferris Wheel right in the center of the fairgrounds the day before? Where was the Haunted House? Was there no popcorn maker? No cotton candy whisker? Just that morning there had been a bunch of balloons in the barker’s fist, stretching taut a web of string, like a movie star’s jaguars straining against leashes. The balloon seller stood stiff as a statue, his hand clenched pitifully around a skein of nothing, his ordinarily jovial visage now wan and drawn.
Koko approached the balloon vendor and Pudgy’s pogoing became more frantic with each step, circling them both and yelping. As Pudgy and Koko got closer, the balloon man’s bowler hat disappeared, then his head, and soon his chest, waist and legs all vanished. When they reached where the man had once stood, all that was left was his shoes.
“What’s going on here?” Koko cried out to a storyboard whose animals, acrobats, jugglers and mimes were disappearing one by one. “And where’s Betty Boop?!”
Pudgy’s yaps and turning circles ceased, replaced by an aspect of fear and a trembling that was drawn by wavy lines at his shoulders and haunches. “What is it Pudgy?” Koko cried. “What do you see?”
Darkness fell across the midway and Pudgy began fading into it. He resumed his piercing yelps, but as his image became less and less distinct, his vocalizations were likewise evanescent. Rides, ticket booths and little boys and girls, once rendered with a true and sure hand all grew fuzzy and vague, their fine black lines’ dramatic play against the white of the page now smudged into a mottled wash of gray. The penumbra that had begun as subtle shading became darker until it was slate, shale and then nearly pitch black. The clown felt the presence of something enormous and awful, its hot breath upon his neck. He tried to run away from it, but it was everywhere.
The thud of Koko’s heart filled his ears, or perhaps it was the heartbeat of the terrible creature pursuing him. Its sickly smell enveloped his head. In the spaces between the thundering heartbeats, he heard its footpads scraping across the ground. Koko looked down at his hands and the left one was gone.
“I have to make it to the next frame,” he thought to himself. “I have to warn the others!” Koko pushed forward, his leaden legs barely able to drag himself along. One brave thrust with his right, then his left, then his right, but as he attempted the next footfall, his left leg was no longer there and he crashed to the ground. Koko dragged himself forward with his one good arm across the page using the few stones, trees and tent poles that had yet to be erased. He grasped the corner of the page and tore it back, and columns of light poured in from Gasoline Alley. He stuck his head through and saw Walt Wallet and Phyllis Blossom walking hand in hand down the street, Skeezix in knickers traipsing behind them.
“Wallet!” the clown screamed. “It’s here! It’s happening! Like they said it would! Run! Run! Save yourselves!!!”
When Walt Wallet turned around, all he saw was a turned back corner of that day’s final panel and a dark void behind it that slowly shrunk back to the white of the page. The clown’s death cries chattered in the distance, like screeching tires two blocks away, full of fury, but so indistinct as to be dismissed without much concern.
“What was that Daddy?” Skeezix asked.
“Sound’d t’me like th’ clown fr’m Betty Boop, but t’warn’t nuthin’ I could say f’r sure!” Walt Wallet said.
Bugs Bunny and Popeye had both had a long day at the studio and were relaxing over carrots and spinach at the Cartoon Canteen.
“So ah...tck-tck-tck...what’s up Doc?” Bugs asked. “Airplanes and flags, ah-gka-gka-gka-gka-gka.” Popeye’s corn cob pipe clacked against his dentures.
“It’s ah...Boop ain’t it, Popeye? You sweet on her?” Popeye’s pipe made the sound of a steamboat whistle.
“Why I oughtta...”
“You wouldn’t hit a woman, now would you?” Bugs had changed into an evening gown, bustle, falsies and full makeup and was batting two-inch long eyelashes at Popeye.
“W-w-w-w-o-w!” Popeye said, his eyes bulging and his pipe spinning in his mouth. “I wouldn’t hit no goil!”
Bugs turned back into himself. Popeye kept talking. “Speakin’ o’ goils though, the goil I wants is likes you said, Betty Boop. You see, I was just gettin’ up the noive to ask her out, and here I haven’t seen her in a week. Don’t tells Olive! I mean I loves Olive, but Betty Boop’s got some coives! W-w-o-o-o-w-w!” His pipe grew to ten times its normal size and let loose a foghorn blast.
Elmer Fudd walked into the Cartoon Canteen dressed in a blazing red plaid flannel hunting jacket and hat with fold-down earmuffs. Bugs and Popeye were still being drawn in black and white and they practically fell off their barstools.
“Ah...tck-tck-tck, what’s up Doc? With the jacket and hat I mean.” Bugs said, trying hard but barely keeping his composure. Popeye was less concerned with decorum.
“Well blows me down and shiver me timbers, where did you get that coat and hat? W-o-o-o-o-o-w-e-e-e-w-o-o-o-w!” Pipe, eye, forearm, all were in full bloat.
“It’s cuwuh,” Elmer Fudd said. “you know, wike bwoo, wed, gween, and yewow. Aah, wats. Howcome so many cuwuhs have elhws in them? Wats.”
Popeye mauled his corncob and “Anchors Away” played in the background. “You don’t suppose Betty’s taken up with some color cartoon, some Dick Tracy with a flesh- colored face? Izzat why she hasn’t been down to the Canteen?”
“Aah...tck-tck-tck...maybe she’s on the wagon...” Bugs said, though he suspected Popeye’s fears might be true.
“Naah...dey’s somethin’ wrongs and I means to finds out what it is!” Popeye squeezed a can of spinach at its middle, and when its contents popped out in an arc, he thrust open his lower jaw and swallowed them whole.
“What’s wong?” Elmer asked. “What’s Popeye tawking about?” “Ah...tck-tck-tck...Betty Boop’s toined up missing, and ah, Popeye here’s got a mind to batten down her hatches if you know what I mean...”
“Why you...” Popeye wound up his forearm and spun his fist around ten times in a second preparing to deliver a punch, but Bugs had again transformed himself into the image of a beautiful, voluptuous woman. “W-o-o-o-a-a-a-h!!!” Popeye unwound his wrist and Bugs turned back into himself.
“I heard it was The Entity,” Elmer said.
“Ah...tck-tck-tck...The Entity, Doc?”
“The Entskitsky?” Popeye asked out loud then muttered, “well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle or at least his second uncle once removed and twice put back or something like that ah-gka-gka-gka-gka-gka...”
“Yeah, The Entity. You know, Woody Woodpecker disappeared yesterday too. I wiked Woody Woodpecker. For one thing, his name was easy to pwonounce.”
The Cartoon Canteen front door flew open and the Roadrunner blew through the room and out the rear door, the rush of wind mussing Bugs’ fur. Wile E. Coyote followed closely behind, but he stopped in the middle of the room, first looking left, then looking right. He heard a whistling sound, looked up and a 2000-pound anvil manufactured by the Acme company landed on him, squashing him flat. The Roadrunner dashed back through the room in the other direction, said, “Meep, meep,” and left.
“Ah...that’s a tired bit,” Bugs said, then turned his attention back to Elmer Fudd. “So ah...tck-tck-tck...what else do you know, Doc?”
“Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent got erased this morning. And of course, without Cecil there is no Beanie. Deputy Dog, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss. All gone. Johnny Quest isn’t even funny and it got him.”
“What got him, though? That’s the 64-carrot question,” Bugs said.
“It’s The Entity,” Elmer Fudd said.
“It’s gotsk to be The Entskitsky. It’s gotsk to be,” said Popeye.
“Mnyeah...I thought The Entity was an old wive’s tale,” Bugs said, now dressed as an old wife.
“The Entity is vewy weal.” The Canteen was beginning to fill up, and several other characters joined the conversation. “Call me s-s-sus-s-s-picious,” said Daffy Duck, “but from what I know about The Entity, this-s-s is exactly the way the firs-s-s-t cartoonis-s-s-t-s-s-s s-s-s-aid it would happen.”
“Ah...jeez Daffy,” Bugs said, brushing his chest fur with his fingertips, “if I’d known you were coming, I’d have worn a poncho.”
“I say son, I say, I say it got Yogi Bear last week,” Foghorn Leghorn said. “I guess he won’t be stealing any pic-a-nic baskets any time soon.”
“Abidy-abidy-abity-and then there’s Mister Magoo,” Porky Pig chimed in. “He d-bah, d-bah, d-bah, didn’t even see it coming.”
Tom and Jerry sat and listened, saying nothing.
“Well, tck-tck-tck...I’ve hoid just about enough,” Bugs said. “From what I’ve been told about The Entity, you can’t see it until it’s right on top of you, but when it is, it’s so huge you can’t see it. I’m going to build a rocket ship and go visit Marvin the Martian to see if we can get a better look at this thing.”
“And I’m setting sail for the stormy seas to sees if I can sees it any better from out there,” Popeye said. Bugs and Popeye left the Canteen amid the best wishes of the rest of the cartoon characters, hopeful their heroes could get to the bottom of this.
*******
Popeye’s tiny ship was tossed in the waves, many times spinning under the water line, and at one point even being batted back and forth between two waves and over a third like a ping-pong ball over a net. He passed by an island of cannibals and a stark rock outcropping with a lighthouse manned by a hideous old sea hag, and narrowly escaped giving away his last hamburger on a promise of being paid the following Tuesday. His craft sliced through shark-infested waters and survived a pirate attack. Storms raged and days passed without a breath of wind. Water was running low and he was down to his last can of spinach. In the distance and across the arc of time and space, he heard a pitiful wail, “W-i-i-i-l-l-l-m-a-a-a!!!”
Popeye pulled a hand-held telescope from his pocket and peered through it squinting with one eye, though his squinted eye didn’t vary much from the way it looked when he was not squinting. The other eye popped out the end of the telescope and throbbed as it observed The Entity consuming the entire town of Bedrock. “Well blows me downs! I haves to gets backsk and warns the others!”
*******
Bugs Bunny’s rocket ship streaked toward the stars, Bugs relaxing on the nose cone and munching a fresh carrot. The spacecraft loop-de-looped and landed on a planet that looked like earth, but spangled with buildings and vehicles he’d never seen before. “Hm,” Bugs said, “I must have taken a wrong toyne at Albuquerque...tck-tck-tck...aah, that’s a tired bit.”
A young boy named Elroy and a cute blonde girl who introduced herself as Judy greeted him as he hopped off the rocket. Bugs was introducing himself when the three of them turned in the direction of a tortured scream. “Jane!!! Stop this crazy thing!!!”
A sudden cold wind blew across the futuristic city and they saw George Jetson scooped up by an enormous beast, so huge that all you could see from the ground were its filthy feet, legs and haunches and a distended belly that obscured any view of the creature’s head and shoulders. Judy and Elroy watched in horror as The Entity’s hands ripped Jetson like a wishbone and tossed the halves aside.
“Dad!” Elroy and Judy screamed in unison. They ran off in the directions of their bisected father, but were vaporized before they had gone ten feet.
Bugs jumped back on his spacecraft and streaked into the sky. “Ix-nay on that anet-play,” Bugs said, checking his map and charting a course for Mars.
Marvin the Martian had been tracking Bugs’ approach and was uncharacteristically hospitable at his arrival. He opened the bay doors of his spacecraft and welcomed him in.
“Ahh...tck-tck-tck...what’s up, Doc?” Marvin offered Bugs a carrot and a seat.
“Ordinarily you earthlings make me so angry I would prefer to destroy your feeble planet. In this case however, as you say on your water-logged earth, we’re in the same boat.” He flicked a remote control and the front shade on the windshield rose up tick by tick.
There it was, The Entity, scooping up cartoon characters, backdrops, entire strips and movies and popping them into its mouth. Bugs and Marvin still couldn’t see its face, only the top of its head, but the images of each character that it had consumed could be seen roiling and writhing within a thin gelatinous bladder of clear liquid just beneath the beast’s transparent dermis.
“Despite my ordinary fearlessness, I don’t know how to deal with this guy, and I’m reasonably confident once he dominates Earth, I’m next.” Marvin boosted the magnification on the windshield.
Speed Racer sat strapped into a car without wheels, his fierce and determined expression now that of a frightened child. Tom Slick, Kimba the White Lion, and even Scooby-Doo and the gang wandered lost and wailing through the endless sea of The Entity’s bloated belly. The images of Tennessee Tuxedo, Chumley, Boo-boo, Hekyll and Jekyll, Huckleberry Hound and dozens of others all danced across the beast’s body, their fond and familiar faces now contorted in wails of eternal agony.
“Marvin,” Bugs said, “thanks for the carrot. And ah...tck-tck-tck...as a favor to me, if I do save the planet, please don’t blow it up right away.”
Bugs boarded his rocket and headed home, hoping it wasn’t too late.
*******
Bugs and Popeye arrived back at the Cartoon Canteen at the same time. It was mayhem. There were cartoon limbs and heads scattered everywhere, buckets of red ink splashed across most of the pages, and the bongo riff that is heard when legs run but the character goes nowhere reverberated through the barroom.
The Entity ripped the roof off the Canteen and for the first time took a deep breath and sucked in its gut so all of the cowering characters inside could see it top to bottom. A 900-foot long black tail coiled around the building’s foundation, occasionally snapping like a bullwhip and slicing some duck, bunny or little boy in half. Black, bristly hair covered the creature’s fat haunches, and its toenails, each the size of a dump truck, clacked against the sidewalk.
The mural of consumed cartoon characters undulated across The Entity’s sucked-in stomach, now even more distinct for having been pressed closer to its transparent epidermis. Thick black hair sprouted from the creature’s neck and back and its mammoth ears were rounded across the top, freakishly symmetrical to one another. A pointed nose terminated in a wet, black ball and as it scooped up cartoon character after helpless cartoon character, everyone noticed its white-gloved hands had three fingers and a thumb. It threw its head back and laughed, and juxtaposed against its enormous and hideous aspect, the lilting chuckle of the oversized mouse was striking.
“It’s Mickey! I should have known.” Bugs was hopping mad. “Why that rat bastard. I’ll send him to kingdom come.” Popeye chugged a bushel of spinach.
“Save your strength, Popeye. There’s only one way to deal with this.” Bugs walked over to a pay phone attached to the side of a tree and fished a coin out of invisible pockets. He dialed, waited a moment, and brightened as his party answered. “Ahh...tck- tck-tck...what’s up, Doc? Yeah, it’s me, Bugs. Have you heard? It’s the mouse. Yeah. Out of control. Yeah, I know. It only understands one language. You will? That’s great. Thanks. We all really appreciate it.”
Within seconds, Richie Rich’s armored car pulled into the parking lot. At first it seemed like a lot of money, but in exchange for a trillion dollars, Mickey agreed to regurgitate all of the characters he had already consumed and promised not to rampage for at least another five years. In the end, it was all worth it, even to Richie Rich. “It’s only money,” he said.
The Mouse just laughed.
