TV's Frank's Cock

by Valeria Fate

For reasons that now escape me, it once seemed vitally important to write a parody of the award-winning Canadian short film "Frank's Cock"--a sad and solemn meditation upon AIDS, death and lost love--starring MST3K's Dr. Clayton Forrester in distinctly less solemn meditation upon his lost assistant TV's Frank. The once-available transcript of "Frank's Cock" itself has unfortunately vanished from the Internet, but I am just egotistical enough to hope this stands reasonably well on its own.

As for the scenario presented below, fellow MSTies, watch the "swing choir" sketch in Sky Divers and then tell me Dr. Forrester likes girls. Go on, do it. I'll be here when you get back.

(Stark black-and-white photography, the setting just barely recognizable as Deep 13 under the thick, unnecessary layers of artiness. �Closeup of DR. FORRESTER as he stares solemnly into the camera, clears his throat and begins to speak:)

Frank never had a problem being killed.

He said his first near-death experience was in high school, during the big homecoming game? He was the team mascot, Zippy the Zulu Warrior. �And, uh, the halftime show was this big Polynesian-Minnewegian-Heart of Darkness extravaganza, with the cheerleaders all carrying these huge flaming tiki torches, and Frank decided on the spot to put an extra couple of backflips into his routine and, well, because of the big plaster Zippy head and all, his depth perception wasn't that great.

So he knocked the tiki torch right out of the head cheerleader's hand, and what with the drought that year pretty much making hay out of the football field the place went up like Atlanta in Gone With the Wind. �Wooden bleachers, everything. �Thank God the stadium was right next door to the fire station, or it would've been the Cocoanut Grove all over again. �From that time on, the whole town called him Johnny Pyro. �Still got elected Snow Days king, though.

In high school, I was awfully, awfully good at swing choir. �They REJECTED me, and that fueled my badness. �And when I got into the National Institute for the Advancement of Mad Science and Counterproductive Technology--full scholarship--all my mother had to say about it was, "So, Vo-Tech's not good enough for you, huh?" �(Grits teeth.) Oh, sure, I could have pursued an exciting and rewarding career in information technology, refrigeration, heating and air conditioning or gun repair, but I was into...evil, pure evil. �

(Fiendish gleam in those beady little eyes.) �Yes! �The Michael Jordan of diabolical deeds, the Wayne Gretzky of mind control! �Working in...silence, and secrecy, and the fatal indifference of all you oblivious little goody-two-shoes peons! �I have been acquainted with the night! �I have outwalked the furthest city light! �I got soul, I'm SUPER bad! �And soon, very soon, I shall stride this island Earth like a Colossus reborn and Snicker-snag in the faces of ALL who dared mock me! �Ha ha ha ha ha! �HA HA HA HA HA!

(Laughs with increasingly diabolic intensity for the better part of a minute, then collects himself again and stares back into the camera.)

It'd been a morning of highly productive madness in the lab, and I decided to head over to the local Big G Burger for lunch. �I ordered a Thruster Buster. �A thick four-pound slice of oven-tempered meal food, covered with wet runny blister of growth compost, onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, tomato, special sauce, skanked while you sleep. �No fries. �A mango Splunkie. And Frank was the guy behind the counter. �He said, "Have you heard about our Big G Super Meal Deal?" and I said, "Yes? �What is it?" �And he said, "Uh, I keep forgetting but I think there's five of them. �Uh, okay, the first one is a deluxe Thruster Buster, extra-creamy Splunkie while you wait, wasabi peanuts in our secret honey-mustard coating and, uh, potato cakes. �And the second is--no, wait, I think the first one is a Sun Burger with deep-fried cheese food slow-cooked right into the patty, potato cakes--"

"Look," I said, "just quit blithering and give me my damn order!" �Then I thought it over, and said, "You know what? �Give me some of those potato cakes with my Thruster Buster." �And he said, "Uh, I'm afraid I can't do that, sir." �And I said, "What do you mean, you can't? �The customer is always right, and this customer just ordered potato cakes!" �And he said, "Well, see, we don't have any left. �I ate our entire supply this morning."

I grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to drown him in one of those vats of special sauce... and, well, we've been together ever since.

I told him part of a lab assistant's job is handling some of the most dangerous chemicals known to man, so that I don't have to, and showed him how to prepare my supplies of formic acid and nitromethane. (Holds up one of Frank's "spare" heads.) �It took him a while to learn that. �I showed him how to graft a dog's butt onto a cat's. �My old science project from Evilos. �I taught him how to get stubborn ground-in stains out of carpets, with just a little club soda and a specially engineered strain of superconcentrated coagulase staphylcoccus.

Thank God for those Biohazard Throw Pillows. �

Joel was a bad influence on him. �Him and his pathetic little collections of Tinkertoys, always laughing and gadding about and being nauseatingly sweet and friendly to each other. �Ahhh-AAHH! �Get me a sick bucket. �But Frank, you know, he was into it. �Why can't we know love the way they know love, blah blah. �He just never could learn to cultivate a scientific way of thinking. (Pause, musing to himself.) Joel, Joel, Joel. �I really thought I had that addlepated cheesehead on the ropes. �I mean, stuck up there in the cold, unforgiving void of space, no family, no friends, forced to watch the most unbelievably awful cinematic dreck ever committed to a roll of poor defenseless celluloid for day after day after life-sucking day...and you know how he got away?

Hamdingers.

I mean, who figured he'd ever find that escape pod? �Nobody likes Hamdingers. �But apparently he got a little help from a certain Happy Temp of mine--maybe you know him, his name's Mike Nelson? �(Lets out a truly evil, smug little giggle, then shakes his head.) �No match for my immense brilliance, needless to say. �But Joel still got away. �Crash-landed right into the Australian Outback. �Frank tried to look on the bright side of things. �"Well," he said, "let's just hope he landed on Yahoo Serious."

(Pause.) Needless to say, there was some serious punishment for that. �But hey, you know, all just part of the job. �Replacing his blood with antifreeze. �Drilling holes indiscriminately in his gut. Using him as the all-purpose guinea pig for my gene splicing experiments. �That little incident with the chicken fajitas I accidentally refroze.

Now, at some point this was bound to kill him, but I think it was worth it.

Dying is easy. �Science is hard.

Nobody ever let me kill him as often as Frank did. �Or in so many utterly nefarious ways. �Like he would--just keep coming back to life again, and again, and again. �But we didn't know back then.

Torgo knew.

Torgo sees all and knows all. �I accept that. �But I still don't get the big-knees thing.

Frank never understood that evil requires...patience. �Cunning. �Delicacy. He'd go--he'd pick a day on the calendar and go, "Okay, Steve. �On this date here, on the fourteenth we'll take over the world." �And when Frank said take over the world, he never could decide on a coherent way to do it. �First he's a chauffeur, you know, Meryl Streep worshipping at his feet. �Then he's my Mike Douglas Show co-host, then he's off trying to cleave this puny planet in two like a china cup, and then all of a sudden he's sold on this whole radio station idea. �You know, a radio station called FRANK? �Less talk and more new country, Wynonna, Billy Ray Cyrus? �

(Glowers at screen.) Worst decision I ever made, giving the green light to that. �I mean, I'm slaving bleak, horrible hours in my stifling laboratory, twisting God's work into some slithering, hellacious, mutated thing, and I'm on the very brink of achieving the utter and complete subjugation of all those who once dared snap their gym towels at my hinder when I hear suddenly hear blaring out of the Deep 13 loudspeakers, "So, uh, when did you know your bluegrass band wasn't going to make it and you would go back to working at the cheese factory?"--and I LOSE MY ENTIRE DAMN TRAIN OF THOUGHT! �(Deep breath. �A little calmer:) You know, it was annoying as hell to try and flog those Arbitron ratings and prepare for total domination of the known universe at the same time.

But that was the thing. �I guess he liked people to turn their cranks to Frank. �It somehow connected him to every other minimum-wage slave out there. �Every other vacant-eyed, slack-jawed former fast food flogger turned humble and awestruck assistant to a mad, evil, embittered, yet appealingly vulnerable genius.

I don't know.

Maybe he just needed more Garth. �More Reba.

I never had anyone let me hook his liver up to a carburetor. �I know this is going to sound sentimental but everyone has their own special kind of evil.

We were together five years. �In November it'll be our anniversary...the sixth...but Frank's not gonna be there to see it. �He's in second banana heaven now.

Torgo just...took him away, led him right up to sidekick paradise. �A beautiful place where all the lackeys and toadies and whipping boys are forever safe and free. �Tonto, Kato, Baldrick, Gabby Hayes, Joe Besser, the whole bunch. �Not Watney Smith, though. Everybody hates Watney.

I knew something was wrong when I came back to the lab one night and Frank was just...gone. I mean, what with his fear of halogen I knew he wouldn't be out that late. �And he'd left behind his Jane West doll, so... (Pause.) It would have been devastating. �If I cared one iota, I mean.

He, uh, came back--or down, whatever--to visit, right afterwards. �He looks kinda different now. �Kind of...ethereal. �All that white. �Kind of like Spanky dipped in flour. �But that spitcurl--the same as ever. �I talked to him. �He said, "Somewhere, deep inside your soul, you'll always be killing me." �And then he said, "To the end of your days, you'll be a profoundly lonely man." (Shrugs.) �Well, I could have told you that. Genius has its price. �And then he said...uh, it's kind of hard for me to reproduce it, "Uuck-uhhOOOOOOHH!"

That sound. �You know, I never did figure out just what the hell it meant. �So nothing's really changed. Not really. �Except...nobody to provide my grab-and-go tissue samples...nobody to test my mealworm medium...nobody to blame my mistakes on...nobody to sit in on flugelhorn... (Pause.) I can't work under those conditions. �I'm a scientist.

(Scowls, then sighs to himself.)

Give me my TV's Frank--and when he shall die, cut him into tiny stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will fall in love with the night, and pay no heed to the garish sun.

(Assumes a theatrical pose momentarily, loses it and glares ferociously into the camera.)

Frank? �Wherever you are...I WILL KILL YOU!

(Knocks over a brimming beaker just to show he's in charge of things around here, dammit, and stalks away. �The mysterious, evil-looking liquid in the beaker spills to the floor of Deep 13, hisses ominously, eats a huge hole in the concrete; DR. FORRESTER pirouettes awkwardly around it, narrowly misses falling right into the toxic chartreuse-colored puddle as he tilts his head yet again in the direction of the camera.)

Then there was Frank's co--

(Pause.)

Er...never mind. (Makes a hasty retreat from camera range.)

© 2001 by Valeria Fate. This is a derivative, nonprofit work containing material which is the property of Best Brains, Inc. and Mike Hoolboom.