Salmon
Female Salmon…..Victoria Jackson
Male Salmon…..Mark Harmon
Male Salmon #2…..Kevin Nealon
Announcer: The salmon. In terms of strength, endurance and navigational ability, perhaps the most remarkable of God’s creatures. In an odyssey of mythic proportion, they swim downstream to live in the sea. Then, as adults, they make the arduous journey thousands of miles back to the very streams that gave them birth. There, just before they die, they spawn.
[ open on Female Salmon spawning, as Male Salmon swims over ]
Male Salmon: Excuse, me, Miss, but, uh.. can I ask you a question? Are you spawning? ‘Cause.. I just thought if you were, maybe I could join you?
[ Female Salmon swims away in disgust, as Second Male Salmon swims in ]
Male Salmon #2: Hey, Mr. Subtle! Why don’t you just go up and grab her, for Gosh sakes!
Male Salmon: What do you mean?
Male Salmon #2: What I mean is: you know she’s spawning, I know she’s spawning. But you can’t just go, “How about it, Baby?” You gotta be romantic.
Male Salmon: Romantic? I’m gonna die any day now! I don’t have time for romantic!
Male Salmon #2: Look, I’m telling you, it works. I must have spawned with twenty female today. And what time is it now, noon?
Male Salmon: Twenty? Aren’t you afraid of getting.. salmonella?
Male Salmon #2: Aw, forget it!
[ Second Male Salmon swims away ]
Male Salmon: Hmm.. romantic, huh?
[ SUPER: “Later That Day” ]
[ scene dissolves to Female Salmon in another part of the stream, as Male Salmon swims over with a larva in tow ]
Male Salmon: Excuse me.
Female Salmon: [ put off ] Oh, it’s you.
Male Salmon: Yeah, I just wanted to apologize for what I said before. Here. I brought you a little something. [ nudges the larva towards her ]
Female Salmon: Oh? Oh, really? Well, I am kind of hungry. It looks delicious. They’re really hard to find, you know?
Male Salmon: [ blushing ] Oh, that’s okay. It was a stone fly larva. I can find them. I just push over a big rock with my snout, and they’re all over underneath.
Female Salmon: [ smiling ] You can push over rocks with your snout?
Male Salmon: Big ones!
Female Salmon: Wow! You must be strong! I bet that you could break a twenty-pound test!
Male Salmon: Well, I hope I never have to find out – knock on wood!
Female Salmon: [ laughs ]
Male Salmon: So.. you from around here?
Female Salmon: Originally.
Male Salmon: Me, too.
Female Salmon: Oh, yeah, of course. I guess we’re all from around here, or we wouldn’t be here.
Male Salmon: It sure is beautiful, isn’t it?
Female Salmon: Yeah.
Male Salmon: I’d like my smallfry to grow up here.
Female Salmon: Me, too. You know, it’s so depressing downstream. Everybody’s just, “Me, me, me!” It’s like, “What can I eat?”
Male Salmon: Oh, it makes you sick, doesn’t it? I mean, that ocean water really hurts my eyes.
Female Salmon: Me, too.
[ they both start to say something at once ]
Female Salmon: [ laughing ] You go ahead!
Male Salmon: [ laughing ] No. You. You!
Female Salmon: Well.. I was just thinking about that waterfall about three miles back. I didn’t think I was ever gonna get over that thing!
Male Salmon: Oh, tell me about it! Boy! I think the key is, you can’t be afraid to look stupid.
Female Salmon: Really? You know, that’s so true..
Male Salmon: Hey! Watch this! [ he swims a backwards loop around her ]
Female Salmon: Wow! I’m impressed! You’re really good! You know, a lot of those mating dances are so blatant and mindless.
Male Salmon: Thanks!
Female Salmon: You know.. um.. I have a little place over there behind that boulder.
Male Salmon: Really?
Female Salmon: Yeah.. it’s sort of a little area that I hollowed out in ther gravel with my tail. You wouldn’t, uh.. want to come over and see it, would you?
Male Salmon: Well, actually, I was on my way to – Yeah, I’ll go over there.
Female Salmon: Oh, good! It’s just right over there, past that log.
[ she leads the direction, but a bear captures her instead ]
Male Salmon: Hey! Hey! Hey, let her go! Bear!
[ she swims back into the scene, crying ]
Female Salmon: [ in tears ] Did you see that?!
Male Salmon: Are you okay?
Female Salmon: I.. I think so..
Male Salmon: Damn bears! I hate them! You still want to go over to your place?
Female Salmon: Oh, gosh, let’s just do it right here!
Male Salmon: I think we’d better.
Female Salmon: I think so, too.
[ they begin to spawn together, to fade ]
