The Pitch

By Wuckster

They always said life was like a hurricane here in Duckburg. Indeed, in the ten blocks between the docks and his uncle's money bin, Donald Duck had to dodge out of the way of two race cars, several lasers, and no less than six aeroplanes. Luckily his time in the navy had honed his reflexes sharper than a razor's edge and he was able to avoid bodily harm. Plus, in truth he had been expecting it. This was more or less an average day in the 'burg.

The part that came as a surprise was when he reached the top of the hill and saw no sign of the money bin. Instead there appeared to be a large rip in the fabric of reality occupying the space where it had once stood. He couldn't see anything inside of it because it radiated an intensely bright golden light. Also there seemed to be traces of unfamiliar sounding music emanating from it. Something about blue suede shoes.

"Uncle Scrooge?" Donald called out. "Huey? Dewey? Louie?"

There was no response.

"What the heck is going on here?" He rubbed out his eyes and looked again, but the strange light was still there. The only thing he could think of was the Beagle Boys must have really pulled a big caper this time. Maybe they had teamed up with Magica De Spell and teleported the bin away somewhere.

Well, there was no choice. It seemed he was going to have to solve a mystery. And possibly rewrite history. It was up to him to save the day, and the only option appeared to be walking into the light. So he did.

*

August 16th, 1977

The king of rock and roll was sitting on the can, his white rhinestone bedazzled pants around his ankles. He was straining mightily to the point a vein was throbbing in his forehead. "I say, too many peanut butter and banana sandwiches, uh huh. My digestive system is all shook up."

Suddenly there was a crackling sound and the space in front of him seemed to tear open. A bright golden light flashed and a cartoon duck in a sailor suit stepped out. He squawked incomprehensibly for a minute and threw a mighty temper tantrum.

"Whoa there, little fella. My name's Elvis Presley. What can I do for you?" He attempted to execute one of his famous stage moves, but the rubber legs and pelvis thrusts were a little awkward in his seated position and he ended up whipping his aviator sunglasses off his head and they smacked into the wall. He picked them up sheepishly and pulled up his pants.

"Have you seen my nephews or my Uncle Scrooge?" Donald asked. "Or a giant money bin?"

"Nothing like that around here. Between Priscilla and Colonel Tom spending my money like it's going out of style, I doubt I have enough to fill up a piggy bank. But did you say some children were in trouble?"

"My nephews! They disappeared!"

"No, this won't do," Elvis said as he performed an involuntary hip thrust. "We're gonna have to rescue these youngsters."

The tear in space was still there behind Donald. The light glowed brighter than ever and more music spilled out. This time it came through loud and clear. A woman sang in a soulful voice "We don't need another hero."

"Well, too bad, lady," Elvis said. "Because a hero is exactly what you're about to get. In fact, you're gonna get two of them. C'mon pardner. Let's ride."

And with that, Elvis had left the building.

*

Aunty Entity, the ruler of Bartertown, had the presence of mind to only look mildly surprised when the world ripped open in front of her with a blast of light and a strange man in a sparkly white jumpsuit appeared along with a small duck who looked like some sort of living petroglyph, as near as she could describe him.

"Thank you, thank you very much!" Elvis said as he whirled his arm and pointed his fingers at the strange woman. "Say, we're not from around here, as you may have guessed. We're looking for some young kids that went missing."

"Also my uncle and his money bin," Donald said.

"Yeah, also that. You wouldn't happen to have seen anything like that around here, would you?"

"Indeed I have," Aunty said. "But if you wish to claim them, you must do battle in the Thunderdome!" She actually hadn't seen anything even remotely like that. She just really liked making people fight.

"Then to the Thunderdome we shall go!" Elvis shouted. The glowing light started playing a song about someone who came from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. He assumed that was the way to the Thunderdome so he leaped back into the portal, followed by Donald Duck. Aunty Entity didn't want to miss out on the fun, so she went through as well.

*

Thor and the Incredible Hulk stepped out into the arena awaiting their next opponents. The Grandmaster smiled because unbeknownst to them, he had summoned from the deepest depths of the ocean none other than the High Priest of the Great Old Ones, The Great Dreamer, The Sleeper of R'lyeh, the one and only Cthulhu. But before he could make the announcement a strange glowing light appeared in the middle of the battlefield and three figures stepped out of a hole in the very fabric of reality. The Grandmaster had seen many alien species do battle in his arena over the years, but he'd never seen anything quite like this trio consisting of an overweight man with a pompadour hairstyle dressed in a gaudy jumpsuit, a tall muscular black woman with white hair dressed in a chainmail gown, and a cartoon duck in a sailor suit.

Thor assumed these were his new adversaries so he raised both his swords in the air and yelled "Attack!"

The Hulk adjusted his gladiator helmet and leaped into the air. "Hulk smash!"

Elvis and Donald had been expecting to do battle since Aunty had told them about the Thunderdome so they charged headlong towards their opponents. Aunty took a step back intending to enjoy the spectacle.

The combatants had nearly reached each other when the ground cracked open and a giant green creature that looked like a mix between an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature burst out. Cthulhu had arrived and he wasted no time grabbing everyone in sight with his numerous tentacles, including the spectators in the audience and the Grandmaster himself. The Great Old One began squeezing some people to a pulp and eating others indiscriminately. All appeared lost, but then the Millennium Falcon burst through the ceiling of the arena and began firing lasers at Cthulhu, causing him to let everyone go.

Donald Duck, Elvis Presley, Aunty Entity, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk realized they were all on the same side and that to save the day they would have to go through the portal again and travel to the planet Thundera where they would join forces with Lion-o, leader of the Thundercats. He was in the middle of a last-ditch effort to ward off the forces of Skeletor, who having recently conquered his home planet of Eternia, was looking to expand his empire.

Which is how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get involved.

*

"Wait a minute, back up a second," the fat Hollywood executive said. "Do you think there's any way we could squeeze the Smurfs into this thing as well?"

"I'm sure we can find a way," Michael Bay said. "At any rate, that's my vision for the next Transformers movie. What do you think?"

"I love it!" the executive shouted. "Who said there's no original ideas in Hollywood? Where do you come up with this stuff anyway?"

"An artist's muse is a strange and ineffable thing," Michael Bay said. Actually he had just utilized his normal method of spying on his five year old nephew while he played with his toys.

"Let's get Nic Cage's people on the phone. See if he's available to star. And let's grab that kid from One Direction. What's his name, Justin Bieber? That'll get the preteen demographic into the seats. This is a guaranteed money maker for sure! Oh yeah, and let's get the McDonald's people on the phone so we can set up the Happy Meal tie-ins."

"Sir?" the executive's assistant asked. "Are we sure we have the rights to all of these properties?"

"Are you kidding?" the executive asked. "We're Disney. We own everything."

"And if not we can buy it, right?" Michael Bay said.

"That's right!" the executive said. "Now, Mikey, baby, what I really want to know is does the duck ever get his family back?"

"That's the best part," Michael Bay said. "He realizes that the real treasure is the friends you make along the way and they become his family."

"It's brilliant!" the executive shouted.

"So in the end all the unresolved plot holes don't even matter. Plus I'm just going to retcon everything in the next sequel anyway, so get this. None of this ever even happened! Everyone who died comes back to life and it turns out it was all a dream Bob Newhart had back on his first sitcom, but also it takes place inside the snow globe of a young autistic boy."

"This is why we pay you the big bucks, Mikey. You always deliver the goods."

*

Somewhere deep in the Andromeda galaxy, the top spy for the Philosopher King of the planet V'harja reported on what they had seen while disguised as an assistant for a movie executive on Earth.

The Philosopher King retreated to his office in the twelfth dimension and contemplated this information from an infinite number of angles. After a trillion years from his perspective, but only a tenth of a millisecond for the spy, he came to the conclusion that this constituted definitive proof that there was no intelligent life on Earth and therefore he would be more than ethically justified to blow the distant planet up in order to make usage of the prime real estate its orbit offered so he could park his third spare space yacht.

*

Luckily Michael Bay was on hand to film the explosion of the Earth. He got some really primo footage of stuff blowing up to use in his next cinematic masterpiece coming soon to a theater near you.