ANNOUNCER: From Westminster, it’s time for—
SOUND: Skype rings once.
JOHNNY: Johnny Atsign.
SMITH: (Telephone Filter) Hey, Johnny, it’s Liz Smith.
JOHNNY: Hi, Liz. What’s up?
SMITH: (Telephone Filter) The Boss wants to hold a program development meeting. Can you come over to S-140?
JOHNNY: When?
SMITH: (Telephone Filter) The Boss wants to get started ASAP.
JOHNNY: I’ll be right over.
MUSIC: Theme up and under.
ANNOUNCER: The Lickspittle Broadcasting System presents W. J. J. Hoge in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed Twitter account, America’s fabulous free-lance Internet investigator …
JOHNNY: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign!
MUSIC: Theme up to music out.
SOUND: Footsteps in hall
JOHNNY: The usual format of the program is to start off with a tweet related to the current matter under investigation. This week is different.
Monday, October 2nd. The weather was clear with one of those bright blue October skies in Westminster. It was 10:04 am when I got to room S-140. Internet detail.
SOUND: Door opens.
FRIDAY: Come on in, Atsign. Grab a cup of coffee.
SOUND: Foot steps across room.
JOHNNY: Thanks, Joe.
SOUND: Coffee poured.
SHERIFF: Take a seat.
SOUND: Footsteps across room. Chair pulled out.
SHERIFF: OK. Here’s the situation. We’ve been doing these old time radio parodies for almost a year now. Counting Blogsmoke, Blognet, and Johnny Atsign there have been almost a hundred episodes. It all started as a comeback to a snarky comment by Bunny Boy.
SMITH: I’ve been surprised by how popular the shows have been.
FRIDAY: Part of that may result from the fact that even our short series has sustained longer than anything that Bunny Boy or The Grouch have ever done. That’s allowed our characters to develop more fully than any persona du jour The Grouch is using.
SHERIFF: That brings up the suggestion we had from several followers of the blog that we should do a parody of one of The Grouch’s online radio stations.
JOHNNY: Which one?
SHERIFF: Yeah. That was my first reaction. But after I thought about it, there are some recurring themes in his stuff that we might latch on to.
JOHNNY: I suppose … he often uses the same call sign. But if we transpose the last two letters, we get the call sign of a real station. They might not appreciate …
FRIDAY: Yeah, but there might be some way to do a county music parody of some of the musical junk he’s done and call it something like the Grand Ole Uproar.
SMITH: (Fading out) Sounds kinda weak to me. First of all, most of his musical material is not worth parodying. Second, …
JOHNNY: The meeting went on like that for over an hour.
ANNOUNCER: Autumn is here. Cool weather is just around the corner. Why not stay warm in a Team Lickspittle hoodie? There several styles and colors available—some of the goodies exclusively available for you to spend your hard-earned cash on at The Hogewash Store. Stop by today, and spend some cash to support Team Lickspittle. You can also show your support by hitting the Tip Jar.
JOHNNY: We beat several ideas to death before we reached what should have been an obvious conclusion.
SHERIFF: (Fading in) … which probably what we all knew before the meeting stated.
SMITH: Yeah. Some things are self-parodying.
JOHNNY: Uh, huh. The best thing we can do is to simply let The Grouch be The Grouch.
FRIDAY: He really should be gargling Desenex.
SHERIFF: How’s that?
FRIDAY: As a treatment for athlete’s tongue from having his foot in his mouth.
MUSIC: Stinger
JOHNNY TWEETS: (SYNTH VOICE) @TheGrouch The easiest way to discredit you hasn’t changed.
MUSIC: Theme up and under
ANNOUNCER: Now, here’s our star to tell you about next week’s intriguing episode of our story.
JOHNNY: Next time? More RICO Madness. Join us, won’t you?
Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign!
MUSIC: Swell theme and under
ANNOUNCER: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign, starring W. J. J. Hoge, is transcribed in Westminster. Be sure to join us next Monday, same time and URL, for the next exciting episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign.
MUSIC: Theme up to music out.
ANNOUNCER: Johnny Atsign is a work of fiction. If anyone thinks it’s about him, he should read Proverbs 28:1.
Be sure to tune in every Friday at 6 pm Eastern Time for a episode of Blognet or Blogsmoke on alternating weeks. This is LBS, the Lickspittle Broadcasting System.
Heh!
Reblogged this on A Conservative Christian Man.
BWA HA HA! HOOOOOOOOOOOGE!
The thing about art – it’s entirely subjective. Because of that, I cannot write an essay or a parody and pronounce it “the best thing since sliced bread,” and shove it in a drawer. Judgment can only be made through exposure.
Art cannot exist without an audience to appreciate it.
So the Cabin Boy is the most revolutionary performance artist if our times?
Oh, crap. WJJH is a real radio station in Ashland, Wisconsin.
An example of how the Grouch is “self parody.” I very briefly considered the possibility that the Grouch did not exist, but was part of an online stunt. The things quoted were so outrageous, so malignant, that there’s NO way he’s a real person — I thought. Then Hoge had to get a Peace Order. I still consider this a possibility.