GK: .....brought to you by Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie and frozen rhubarb pie filling.
A recession. Unemployment. It means that people at work are under terrible pressure to work harder, faster (MARCHING FEET ACCEL TO RUN) as cruel overseers drive them harder and harder (WHIP, YELLS) and productivity has to be up, up, up (ASSEMBLY MACHINE, SPEEDING UP), and the stress is almost unbearable (CRIES OFANGER) and management is made up of the stupidest people you've ever met----
FN: (SINGS) I am successful, I'm in management
I'm an executive vice-president
I love my shoes, I love the suit I wear
I love my hair, I love my hair.
GK: You work all day trying to save these idiots from themselves and then as they go away in limos (DOOR CLOSE, BIG CAR SPEED) you pack yourself into a subway car (FN TINNY VOICE: Watch the closing doors. SULLEN MUTTERING OF SQUEEZED PEOPLE), and you feel like a walnut in a fruitcake and one night you see a commercial on TV for a pickup truck cruising along the beach (SURF), climbing sheer granite cliffs (GULLS) and going over mountains (WIND AT SUMMIT) and running with herds of elands on the Serengeti plain (THUNDERING HOOVES) and at the wheel a tall blonde in a thong bikini (SS: Wheeeeeeeeeee), and you look at the commercial and you decide you've got to be free-----
TR: I'm done with it! The miserable commute to the job I hate! I need freedom! I need to breathe! I'm going to follow my dream, honey! I've got an idea that I think can make us very very wealthy.
SS: Beautiful.
TR: But I'll have to quit my job at NorComm and take a couple years off and you'll have to support us by taking in washing and ironing.
SS: Yes! Yes!
TR: And when it's successful, I'll buy you a big white house on the hill and we'll be happy for the rest of our lives.
SS: My hero!
GK: So you go to NorComm and you quit.
TR: A pox on you and all you stand for! Goodbye. (DOOR SLAM) And you spend two years working on a marvelous new invention ---- (TR ALGEBRA GIBBERISH) as your wife does loads of laundry ----- (SS SINGING HAPPILY, SLOSH OF WET LAUNDRY TOSSED INTO DRYER, DRYER SPINNING) ------ and finally one day you've got it ----- the prototype. If it's successful, you're going to be the toast of the electronics world. If it isn't, you're just going to be toast.
SS: Oh, I just know it's going to be successful.
GK: It's the first social networking GPS system in the world and it's never been done before ---- looks like an iPod, a wire in the ear, and as you cross a crowded room, an electronic voice tells you who's who ---- (MURMURS OF PASSERSBY)
SS (ELECTRONIC): Straight ahead: Jimmy Boylan, your cousin. One o'clock: Sue Boylan, his ex-wife. Nine o'clock: venture capitalist Si Diogenes and his trophy wife Shoshana.
GK: It works.
SS (ELECTRONIC): Behind you, Nasheed Farhani, actor. Dressed as a waiter. Eleven o'clock. Diane Jepsen, former colleague at NorComm.
GK: The GPS stores data on as many as 100,000 people you've ever met and identifies them instantly. You're able to walk through a crowded room and make personal contact with everyone there.
FN: Ellen! Ike! So good to see you! Liz! Doug! How's Marlene? Biff. Skipper. Thanks for the birthday card. Al ----- let's do lunch again.
GK: And NorComm pays you five million dollars for it.TR: Five million.
FN: Plus royalties.
TR: Royalties.
SS: My hero. I knew you could do it.
TR: You're the hero, darling. And I'm going to throw you the biggest party you ever saw.
GK: And you arrange for a troupe of elephants (ELEPHANT) and an honor guard (MARCHING FEET) and the Blue Angels for a flyover in tight formation (JETS FLY OVER)
And there is folk dancing (CRIES OF JOY, PERCUSSION) and musicians ---- from India (SITAR, TABLA) and Georgia (BANJO) and the Highlands (BAGPIPE) and a cake (TR AWED INTAKE OF BREATH: Wow.) with a naked woman inside it. (SS; HI!!!) And she trips as she climbs out of the cake (SS ALARM) and falls onto the bagpipe (SFX) and that alarms the elephants. (PACHYDERM PANIC) And they stampede. (ELEPHANTS,) And in your panic, you drop the prototype of the GPS. (ELEPHANT, CRUNCH) And there it is, on the ground. And you turn it on.
SS (ELECTRONIC): Who are these people? Where am I? What's going on?
(RHUBARB THEME)
GK: Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie? Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. (RHUBARB SONG)
(SINGS)
One little thing can revive a guy
And that is a piece of rhubarb pie
Serve it up, nice and hot
Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought
(DUET)
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb
Bebopareebop rhubarb pie
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb
Bebopareebop rhubarb pie
Bebopareebop rhubarb pie