(THEME)
TR (ANNC): A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the 12th floor of the Acme building, one man is trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
GK: It was May, and my landlord Doris had turned off the heat.
SS (DORIS): It's spring. You don't need heat! Wake up and die right.
GK: It's 54 degrees in here Doris. The cockroaches are shivering. The mice have crawled into the oven.
SS (DORIS): Tell em they picked the wrong apartment building. I don't baby my tenants. Especially when they're two months late on the rent.
GK: It's coming, Doris. It's coming. (PHONE RINGS, PICKUP) Yeah, Noir here.
TR: Mr. Noir, this is Hector Dragoon. I'm calling from Detroit. Listen----- a major auto manufacturer whose name must remain a secret has a rather embarrassing problem that I can't mention on the phone so we'd like to fly you here in a stealth helicopter so we can deal with this secretly. (BRIDGE)
GK: And so I flew out to Detroit. It was a very nice helicopter.
FN: Hello, I'll be your flight attendant today ---- may I bring you coffee?
GK: Yes, thank you. Are we up in the air now?
FN: Yes, sir.
GK: I can't hear anything.
FN: No, sir. If you'd like, I could make a chopper sound.
GK: No, thanks.
FN: If it'd make you feel like you were riding in a helicopter---- (CHOPPER)
GK: No, thanks. (BRIDGE) The stealth helicopter took me to the roof of the Resurrection Center, a high-rise complex along the Detroit River, where Mr. Dragoon had his offices on the 12th floor.
TR: I'll get right to the point, Mr. Noir. An auto manufacturer who must remain nameless is missing a car. A rather embarrassing car that the company made back in 1997 when they thought the American car buyer was looking for bigger cars so they made the (BEEP) Ginormous.
GK: Why did you beep?
TR: That was the name of the car company. They made the Ginormous with 12-foot ceilings and hardwood floors and a full kitchen and a lap pool and it got 2.3 miles per gallon and it cost 1.4 million dollars
GK: How many did they sell?
TR: Who?
GK: (BEEP)
TR: Oh. Right. Three.
GK: And how many did they make?
TR: (BEEP)?
GK: Yes.
TR: Four.
GK: So what happened?
TR: They lent the Ginormous to a hip hop mogul from the Bad Boy record company, here in Detroit, a guy named R.U. Ready who wanted the car for a publicity shoot and that was two weeks ago.
GK: So (BEEP) wants the car back?
TR: They make small fuel-efficient cars now. This is a skeleton in the closet, if you know what I mean. We think the car is still in Detroit. But it could be anywhere.
GK: I'm on my way, sir. (BRIDGE) Looking for Mr. Ready, I went to a hip hop club called Whatever which was in a greenhouse and the rapper wore coveralls and carried a hoe. The kind you dig in the earth with.
FN (SINGS):
We got community gardens in the city of Detroit
So that fresh vegetables can be enjoyed
People raising greens and beans in the hood
And those fresh tomatoes sure are good
Got to clean out the bricks, the glass and debris
So you can raise food organically
Plow up the streets, the gutters and curbs
And grow some veggies, fruit and herbs
(HIP HOP BEAT, UNDER)
GK: He was selling organic produce off the stage and women were buying his celery and parsnips.
SS (EXCITED): It's just so real. I love fresh produce.
GK: It's not how I imagined Detroit somehow. I mean, this is Motown, Motor City.
SS: Now it's tomato city. Urban gardening. It's so hip.
TR (RICO): Hey. What you talking to my girl for?
GK: She was talking to me, sir.
TR (RICO): Don't get smart with me, otherwise I'm going to have to mash you like a bug and drop you on a truck full of soybeans and you'll get processed into tofu and eaten by skinny women in leggings and wind up in Ann Arbor. You want that?
GK: Look. I came here to Detroit on business. I'm a business guy. Not here for romance. I'm a consultant.
TR (RICO): Oh yeah? I had a cat once and I had him neutered but he still went out at night and served as a consultant. Well, I'm not going to take it laying down.
GK: R.U. Ready?
TR (RICO): I'm ready, bring it on.
GK: Your name is R.U. Ready? From Bad Boy Records?
TR: Yeah, so what?
GK: This is a whole new development in hip-hop.
TR: Yeah, we call it Green Rap. A whole new movement.
SS: He invented it. Peaceful, vegan, environmentally friendly hip hop.
GK: Great. So that's why you wanted to borrow that big car from (BEEP)----
TR: From who?
GK: The car they call the Ginormous. With the hardwood floors and the lap pool and the kitchen.
TR: So that's who sent you?
GK: They want it back.
TR: I've got plans for that car. Come on. I'll show you. (BRIDGE)
GK: We walked across the street to an abandoned warehouse. (UNLOCKING DOORS, HEAVY DOOR OPENS)
TR: Right in here. (LIGHTS FLICK ON)
(LIMPING, FOOT DRAGGING)
TR: It's just us, Igor.
FN (HUNCHBACK): Yes, Master.
TR: Take us into the garage, Igor.
FN (HUNCHBACK): Yes, master. Right this way, sir.
(HUNCHBACK MUTTERING, LIMPING).
GK: They took me into the garage blindfolded, and they spun me around about fifteen times (SFX), and led me through several sets of heavy doors (SFX), where they had to deactivate the laser grids (SFX), and I could hear security dogs (SNIFFING, GROWL), and finally we came through a gate (SECURITY CODE INPUT, DOOR SLIDES, FOOTSTEPS) and they took off the blindfold and there it was. The Ginormous. Under a light bulb swinging on a cord. (SFX) And it was truly ginormous.
TR: This is Frank, the engineer who designed the new engine.
FN: Hi.
TR: Get in the car, He'll take you for a ride. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I got into the Ginormous. (DOOR OPENS, CLOSES). Frank was in the driver's seat and a robot appeared beside my seat.
SS (ROBOT): Soda, coffee, seltzer, juice, scotch, wine, tea, or milk?
GK: I'll have juice.
SS (ROBOT): Orange, cran, pear, prune, mango, apple, or carrot?
GK: Carrot.
SS (ROBOT): One carrot juice, coming right up. (ROBOT ROLLS OFF)
GK: Are we going to move?
FN: Got to let it warm up. The car runs on gas, a different kind of gas. The kind on the radio.
GK: And he reached over and turned on the radio.
(TURNS UP VOLUME ON RUSH)
TR (RUSH): My friends, that birth certificate the White House showed has yet to be validated, and let me point out the fact that it never was notarized! Never was notarized! So let me tell you, if they can counterfeit $100 bills, it's a whole lot easier to counterfeit a birth certificate, so let's just see if it's real.
GK: And the car was moving (SFX) and the angrier Rush got, the faster the car went.
TR (RUSH): Anybody can produce a document, so let's check it out. And speaking of that, where is the death certificate for Osama bin Laden? Why hasn't that been produced? They say he was shot in the head. Where's the autopsy report? If they wanted to shoot him in the face they should've gotten Dick Cheney to do it. Just because he did that, he thinks he can get re-elected, well I don't think so. (CAR ACCELLERATES) It's what the liberals want. They are going to force you to buy health insurance for your cat. And you know that is why Russia collapsed. Nobody wants to talk about it but it is--(CAR ACCELLERATES)
GK: And there we were rushing along the streets of Detroit under the People Mover and past the Greektown Casino and back around to the Guardian building and then down to the river, going faster and faster as he turned up the volume.
TR (RUSH): ...it makes me so angry, I feel like my eyeballs are gonna explode. You know what union spelled backwards is? Snoinu. Think about that. (CAR WEAVES, PITCHES). If I wanted to sit on my fat butt all day bitching and moaning, I'd join a union, too. Heck yeah I would. (CAR SFX) But I work for a living, bitching and moaning. Unlike some people. (CAR SFX). (FADE INTO BRIDGE)
GK: A car that runs on radio, a 100% clean burning fuel. Does it only run on Rush?
FN: Nope. It also runs on public radio pledge drives. But not as well. (BRIDGE)
GK: So, the Ginormous, an embarrassment to the people at (BEEP) had now become the most fuel-efficient car in Detroit history, and R.U. Ready was the King of Environmental Hip Hop. And Frank was the engineer who designed the talk-burning engine. What a breakthrough. No more foreign oil. America's fuel needs satisfied by recycling anger.
FN: Yeah. And I got a new thing. It's a a horse-drawn carriage drawn by a team of stealth horses.
GK: Stealth horses.
FN: We designed their hooves so they won't make noise.
GK: These horses here? (WHINNY)
FN: Get in the wagon, I'll show you.
GK: Okay. (CREAK OF WAGON)
FN: Giddup. (SLIGHT CREAKING)
GK: Wow. Amazing. The horses are trotting along and I don't hear a thing. Not a thing.
FN: I can do the clip-clop sounds if you like...
GK: No, that's okay.
FN: I like to do the sounds.
GK: I'm enjoying the silence.
FN: A lot of people enjoy hearing me do clip-clops. (SFX HOOVES)
GK: Sorry, but that doesn't sound like horses hooves. You're a better engineer than you are at sound effects.
(THEME)
TR (ANNC): A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the 12th floor of the Acme building, one man is trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions: Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME OUT)