CURVEBALL!! A topical talk show
Script © 2004 by Harry Michael Bagdasian
Cast: Cristy Reffuse (commentator) his Sidekick, Austen (a student) Cooper-Kennel (an educator)
LIGHTS: up on a TV studio setting
We see a throne center stage and a cheap chair plac3ed to either side of it
SIDEKICK: Welcome to “Curveball!!, the weekly news and comment show where the host ambushes and ridicules his guests because, after all, no one – no one in the universe – is smarter than he! And here he is, Cristy Reffuse! (leads applause as Cristy enters)
CRISTY: Today the Pope declared me infallible! How about that, huh? So whatever I say goes! Understand? Now … on what topic shall I renumerate today?
SIDEKICK: Why are teenagers depressed.
CRISTY: Why are teenagers depressing? Easy! All they do is complain about stuff: food, their hair, our music, their clothes, having to eat vegetables, their computers are outdated … it’s just gripe, gripe, gripe! Scheesh!
SIDEKICK: No. Not are teens depressing … why are teen depressed.
CRISTY: They are? Geeze. When I was their age we didn’t have half the cool gadgets they have to play with! What’s to be depressed about.
SIDEKICK: A lot of young teens have bouts with depression.
CRISTY: Kids, get over it! No, just kidding. Let’s discuss this. Of course, I’ll do the talking and you’ll listen because I know everything. Who’s here that I can ridicule today?
SIDEKICK: Austen Elliot, an 8th grader from Herman Melville Middle School. (Austen enters, takes a seat next to Cristy)
CRISTY: So. You’re depressed. And this is important to me because? AUSTEN: Without guests on your show you’d have no one to pick on?
SIDEKICK: Forgive him. He’s a teen and he’s depressed.
CRISTY: You’re depressed?
AUSTEN: Nope.
CRISTY: You’re not depressed?
AUSTEN: Not any more.
CRISTY: But you were depressed?
AUSTEN: Yep. But I took care of it. I stopped reading the stuff they force us to read in school.
CRISTY: Let me get this straight. You’re saying that what you read in school caused depression?
AUSTEN: Well, duh! You read newspapers?
CRISTY: No way. Too depressing. (realizes what he said) Oh.
AUSTEN: Then again, by not reading, I’m failing my English class. CRISTY: But if you read, you’re depressed.
AUSTEN: Cause and effect, man cause and effect, savvy?
CRISTY: All right, smart aleck, let’s see what’s up with that. Do we have an informed grownup to discuss this topic intelligently?
SIDEKICK: Yes, Mrs. Danielle Cooper-Kennel from the Skrub County Office of School Administration.
CRISTY: What’s her thing?
SIDEKICK: She’s a former English teacher with a masters degree in Classic World Literature with a minor in playground supervision.
Cooper-Kennel enters takes a seat next to Cristy.
Now Austen is on one side of Cristy and the lady
is on the other side of Cristy
CRISTY: Okay, Ms. Cooper-Kennel, what’s the problem with teens, huh? This kid says he gets depressed because of what you force him to read.
KENNEL: World literature is vital. It helps us provide young people with insight and perspective on life in the world around us.
CRISTY: You got a reading list I can see?
KENNEL: (consulting her list) Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”.
CRISTY: Fine. Let’s start with “Romero and Juliet”.
KENNEL: A classic! Rich in poetry! It teaches our young people that it is bad to hate!
AUSTEN: Yeah, check it out … a pair of star-crossed lovers take their lives and in doing so, end their parent’s strife. Suicide is a good thing?
KENNEL: No, no, no, no, no! It’s a tragedy. But a great tragedy! It teaches children …
CRISTY: That kids gotta kill themselves before their parents learn to get their act together.
AUSTEN: Kids should die because their parents are stupid? Where’s that at, man? The parents teach children to hate, kids pay the price … Come on! Depressing, stuff, man!
CRISTY: Big time!
KENNEL: It’s a classic work by a world class dramatist!
AUSTEN: It’s a depressing story written a gazillion years ago by a dead white guy from a country we broke away from 228 years ago!
KENNEL: (totally insulted) Well, I never …
CRISTY: What else you force them to read? (grabs Kennel’s list) Bridge To Tarabithia?
KENNEL: A moving, involving story and heart-warming story that teaches …
AUSTEN: … next time get a better rope before swinging out over a deep river.
CRISTY: It teaches …
AUSTEN: … that people fall in love and die! Leslie drowns. Jess is left alone. He loses his soul mate! So inspiring!
CRISTY: They can’t be all depressing!
AUSTEN: Try me.
CRISTY: A Separate Peace?
AUSTEN: Phineas dies. Gene is left without his best friend.
CRISTY: The Lottery?
AUSTEN: You kidding? A whole town stones a woman to death!
CRISTY: Tuck Everlasting?
KENNEL: Ah hah! He can’t die, he has eternal life!
AUSTEN: But the girl dies because she won’t drink the eternal water. He’s left alone! That’s sooooooo uplifting!
CRISTY: Charlotte’s Web. I know that one …
CRISTY & AUSTEN: Charlotte dies …
CRISTY: Yeah. Animal Farm?
AUSTEN: The horse buys the farm.
KENNEL: The horse doesn’t buy anything, he dies hauling …
AUSTEN: See!
CRISTY: Uh huh. Lord of the Flies?
AUSTEN: Piggy gets squished, they sharpen a stick at both ends to ….
KENNEL: Stop! This is a family show!
CRISTY: Yeah, but you let them read about impaling … never mind. The Kay?
AUSTEN: Timothy, the sailor, he dies.
CRISTY: All right, point made. But now that you’re not reading, what do you do?
AUSTEN: Stay home, play video games.
KENNEL: Oh, good! Nobody dies in video games, do they?
CRISTY: Well?
AUSTEN: I never thought of that …
KENNEL: Nobody dies in video games, right! And Bambi’s Mom doesn’t get shot.
CRISTY: They shoot Bambi’s Mom?
KENNEL: Oh, get over it, you big blow hard!. SIDEKICK: Well, we’re out of time.
CRISTY: Bambi’s Mom get’s shot?
SIDEKICK: Tune in next week when we’ll discuss: “Have video games desensitized America’s youth?”
CRISTY: They make Bambi an orphan?
SIDEKICK: That’s next week … on “Curveball!!
LIGHTS: blackout MSX: music sting
