THE MANNEQUIN STORY

ON A BIG NEW YORK DEPARTMENT STORE

INT. DEPARTMENT STORE WINDOW: ON THE MANNEQUINS INSIDE:

MILDRED: "Am I imagining it or is it getting even hotter in here?"

REGINALD: "Haw! Good old Mildred, always exaggerating."

NIGEL: "No, I feel it, too. My fingers are getting sticky."

GERTRUDE: "That's because you're made of wax. You should be plaster, like me.  We don't melt so easy.

Of course, we flake when it gets hot ...like...er, um...now."

NIGEL (VO): "It's almost Summer. Mornings get hot now. I don't think the store knows what's happening here."

GLADIOLA: "I'd give anything to ditch this fur coat."

IRIS: "The hands in the glove display are made of 100% wax. I figure we're okay as long as they hold out."

ON THE DISPLAY: THE GLOVED HANDS POINT RIGIDLY AT AN IMAGINARY POINT O.S.

THEN, WITHOUT WARNING, THE FINGERS GO LIMP.

ALL (VO): (A collective gasp)

DAISY: "Well, that's it then. We're screwed."

DAISY(VO): "Paul, you seem to be taking this calmly."

PAUL: "Why not?  there's no use in crying about what you can't change. Besides, I've always wondered what happens to creatures like us when the end comes."

PAUL (VO): "I guess I'm going to find out."

MILDRED (DEJECTED): "Yeah...find out."

DAISY: "Find out...."

BEHIND THE MANNEQUINS A DOOR SLIDES OPEN:

ART DIRECTOR: "What the heck!!??? What's going on here? Who's responsible for this!?????

ART DIRECTOR (VO) (TO HIS CREW): "Get those mannequins in a car fast!!! Turn the engine on! Crank the air conditioner all the way up!!!"

ON THE MANNEQUINS INSIDE THE VAN:

MILDRED: "Hey, we're in a van. Does anyone know how to drive it?"

REGINALD: "No, but if humans can do it, how hard could it be?"

VENTRLOQUIST DUMMIES

I don't know why, but grotesque, even evil, puppet designs have been a staple of childrens media ever since Punch and Judy.

When I was a little kid I used to watch the Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney show (above) and at least once I got a terrible nightmare from thinking about the creepy way Jerry used to roll his eyes to the side.

A digression: Mike has a film showing Paul Winchell with a puppet version of himself. The body is one of the best I've ever seen on a ventriloquist's dummy.

Back on topic: one of the scariest kids show puppets of all time might have been Foodini from a kids show called (I'm guessing) "Pinhead and Foodini."

I've never seen the show...maybe it didn't play in my town. Was this character (above) a regular? He looks like a burn victim in the throws of great pain...something out of Dante's Inferno.

Above, another evil Foodini character.

Even the compositions in that show sometimes came off as evil...or am I imagining that?

Stories like the ones told by The Brothers Grimm are full of creepy ideas and yet my strong intuition is that these tales are good for kids. So where do you draw the line? I wish I knew.