77k: Robert Klein / Bonnie Raitt

Lobsters Take New York / Goodnights

Written by: Michael O'Donoghue

... Robert Klein
Lone Soldier ... Bill Murray
Announcer ... Don Pardo
Man #1 ... Tom Davis
Man #2 ... Michael O'Donoghue

[We return from the commercial break to discover, atop a crane, a dead cameraman slumped in his chair, his camera pointing uselessly at the floor. The studio is filled smoke and the unearthly sounds of gigantic but unseen atomic lobsters -- roaring, screeching, squealing, buzzing, honking. We pan across the motionless studio audience -- they are all dead, sprawled in chairs and on the floor. We pan over to home base, which is in ruins, dead bodies everywhere. A terrified Robert Klein, microphone in hand, describes the destruction to the hand-held camera.]

Robert Klein: Well, it's still going on even worse than before. All around me, the dead! The dying! Oh, the humanity! Our army wiped out!

[Behind Klein, a lone soldier walks through the debris, shouting incomprehensibly into a bullhorn, saying things like "Evacuate the building!" The soldier fires off a few rounds from a .45 pistol. Klein covers his head with his hand as debris rains down from above.]

Robert Klein: This may well be mankind's final broadcast. Even as I speak-- Good Lord! [A giant lobster claw enters the frame. The soldier retreats from view.] One of the gigantic lobsters has demolished our last camera with a single swipe of its horrible claw! Now it's moving toward me! It's fifteen feet away. Ten! [More gunshots. The claw fills the screen.] I can see the long, quivering antennae! The slimy legs! [The hand-held camera slowly sinks to the debris-filled floor and tilts over.] Its snout and claws, glistening with human bloo--

[Klein's voice is cut off in mid-sentence. The screen fills with static but we still hear the eerie sounds of the lobsters until the program's end. After a pause, we also hear the voice of announcer Don Pardo:]

Announcer: Robert Klein! Robert Klein! Do you read me? Well, good-bye, America. Until we meet again, this is Don Pardo saying AAAAAAIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

[Over the static and lobster roars, we now hear the disembodied voices of two men:]

Man #1: My God! Pardo's been eaten by the beast. Is there no stopping these atomic lobsters?

Man #2: Listen, I have a plan. It sounds crazy but it just might work. I'll need boiling water.

Man #1: Boiling water? How much? A couple gallons?

Man #2: No! Millions of gallons! Enough to fill - fill Central Park Pond. And I'll need a truckload of butter. Make - make that drawn butter.

Man #1: [writes it down] One truckload, drawn butter. Check.

Man #2: And baked potatoes the size of boxcars. And lobster bibs.

Man #1: Lobster bibs? [The final credits begin to roll.] You mean ordinary lobster bibs?

Man #2: No! Huge lobster bibs, fifteen by twenty feet at least. And nutcrackers!

Man #1: Nut--? You mean regular nutcrackers?

Man #2: No! Not at all. Enormous nutcrackers, at least ten feet long. And lemons the size of golf carts!

Man #1: Check, check. How 'bout some sour cream for those potatoes?

Man #2: Good point! I'll need, say, about a moving van of sour cream. For dessert, a chocolate mousse as big as a house.

Man #1: Chocolate mousse? Naw, it's too rich. Much too rich.

Man #2: Well, how 'bout a swimming pool full of Jell-O?

Man #1: Uh, what flavor? I--

Man #2: Any flavor you want. How 'bout, uh, lime with carrot scrapings?

Man #1: Well, I just had lime, uh, with carrot scrapings for lunch. I suppose I could have something else -- it's an emergency -- but, uh...

Man #2: Well, what about raspberry?

Man #1: Well, I'm - I'm allergic to raspberry. How 'bout a - how 'bout a pool full of fruit cup?

Man #2: In - Instead of Jell-O?

Man #1: Yeah, yeah.

Man #2: Well, isn't fruit cup more an appetizer, like tomato juice?

Man #1: No, not necessarily. You can have fruit cup for dessert.

Man #2: Well, I don't know. Listen, how would you feel about a rum raisin cake the size of a tennis court?

Man #1: Well, what kind of icing? [Among the credits: lobster roars by CHEVY CHASE, lobster animation sequence by WILLIAM DePALO and WILLIAM BILOWIT]

Man #2: Any kind, I suppose. Orange marmalade would be nice.

Man #1: Well, how 'bout coconut icing? I think that--

Man #2: Wait, you know, coconut really doesn't go with rum raisin. If you wanted coconut icing, I could have a sponge cake the size of a roller rink...


Submitted Anonymously