Uncle Fun and Sparky Land

Hello again, all of you who have been eagerly awaiting both the conclusion and dénouement of our ongoing saga:

   Our previous encounter with you revealed the reason for the unexpected appearance of that evil genius of all evil geniuses, Professor Proteus.

   Hearing that Sparky was trapped in an alternate universe of television programs, Professor Proteus planned to extricate him, using his latest invention—the Contrived Plot Device.

   A certain degree of skepticism was raised among us as to the efficacy of this method of rescue.

   Professor Proteus conquered our qualms with a stunning display of logic. “The fact that some sort of contrived plot device—say, for example, me and my Contrived Plot Device—has appeared at just this moment in the story means that my Contrived Plot Device is already working to perfection, n’est-ce pas?”

   As our heads were swimming from trying to grasp what he’d just said, none of us had a proper answer for that. Instead, we put ourselves—and Sparky’s fate—in the hands of the good (well, not-so-good) Professor, who outlined his scheme.

   “A lot of television series have had finales—episodes which close out their continuing stories, and take care of unresolved questions—shows like The Fugitive, M*A*S*H, Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, Barney Miller—”

   “—oh, and that one with the senator who was all paranoid about Communists—” Science Boy offered.

   “You mean, the McCarthy hearings?” I corrected him.

   “Yes, WELL—” Professor Proteus cut in curtly. “What you need to do is to find a television series that should have had a final episode, but didn’t. Then I use the Contrived Plot Device to create one, lure your wandering urchin friend into it, and pull him back out here.”

   Alert to Professor Proteus’ careful choice of pronouns, I quickly cottoned on to the idea that the research part of this job was to be left to us. We immediately set about looking for a television show with a basic premise that cried out for a proper conclusion.

   We eventually settled on Hogan’s Heroes…

   …that heart-warming family-oriented sitcom set in a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp. It stood to reason that the POWs under the charge of Colonel Klink had to have been liberated during the mop-up operations by Allied forces at the end of the war: all that remained was for Professor Proteus and his technological marvel to make it happen.

   A quick calibration and the push of a button, and the Contrived Plot Device was set in motion. We immediately got the sense that all had not gone according to Professor Proteus’ design specs when we saw, at the head of the liberating troops, the Austrian-American cinéaste Otto Preminger.

   The Contrived Plot Device had apparently slipped a gear or something, and latched onto Preminger’s turn as a POW camp commandant in the classic film Stalag 17 as a point of reference. It misfired even worse than that, however, and lifted him, not from that role, but from his appearance in the 1960s live-action Batman TV series as Mr. Freeze.    

   Whatever happened, the whole distressing mix-up brought Sparky into range. I’m not sure the Contrived Plot Device was entirely responsible for that, though. The boy always finds a way to be first on the scene when there’s easy pickings.

   The final push to bring Sparky home again was an all-out effort. Science Boy operated the controls of the Contrived Plot Device, under the supervision of Professor Proteus, who barked orders and insults from a safe distance in case of an electrical discharge or an explosion. The picture on the TV set began to jump around, jumbling programs from different eras into an incoherent mess.

   With science faltering, magic took over, as M’Dear stepped in and took dead aim on the TV, catching it in a concentrated burst of finger-zapping.

   That little finishing kick was all the Contrived Plot Device needed to free Sparky once and for all.

  While congratulations and double entendres continued to be meted out all round, Moose ran to Sparky’s side. This involved more climbing and clambering than actual running—Sparky had been thrown clear over three adjacent fifty-foot-high mounds of clean fill.

   These bits of paper were hardly “nothing important”. In fact, they were an early draft of the Marshall Plan, the grand scheme for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. General Marshall and his staff must have felt that the loss of the documents was a security risk, because many of the key provisions of this original plan were markedly different from the final version. This was a pity, as I realized when my eyes lighted on one of the final stipulations. It was written in red block capitals, and underlined in several places:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD the nations of EUROPE EVER SHARE A COMMON CURRENCY. THINGS WILL WORK OUT FOR A WHILE, BUT THE INEVITABLE RESULT WILL BE TOTAL DISASTER.

   So, if you’ve recently lost a lot in the European money and bond markets, now you know who to thank. A word of warning: if you want to “thank” Sparky in person, you’ll have to go through Our Miss Moose to do it.

   We couldn’t agree more. Still and all, we’ll try to keep civilization just a little safer from Sparky in the immediate future…or at least, keep close enough to him to see what he’s doing to it so we can head for the hills, if need be.

Uncle Fun