| General Script posted July 3, 2020 |
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Short humorous script
Shorty Bakes a Porcupine Pie
by CrystieCookie999
Characters John Shane The Hero, 25-35. A John Wayne sound-alike, is devoted to his faithful horse, Sterling. Shorty John's (usually) clever, faithful sidekick, 25-35. Loves his horse, Jumper. Julia Wild, Famous Western chef selling a cookbook Passers-by 1, 2 Any age or gender. Setting: Border of the state of Idaho, 1894 Scene 1 Near border of Idaho in the United States of America, JULIA WILD is sitting under a tiny wooden booth with thatched or shingled roof, center stage. She is dressed in a long-sleeved blouse with hair elegantly pulled up under a chef's hat. She is re-arranging books stacked in two or three piles on a small table in front of her, and smiling broadly as PASSERS-BY walk by. A colorful wooden sign with curlicues says: JULIA WILD'S WESTERN COOKBOOK, SALE $2.50. Sound of horse's hoofbeats offstage. JOHN and SHORTY approach but do not pass booth yet. PASSER-BY 1 (Enters Stage Left. Looks at sale sign and then at JULIA.) Huh, two-fifty for a book? I already got me a book. (Shakes his head with disgust, keeps walking off Stage Right.) PASSER-BY 2 (Enters Stage Right. Looks at sale sign and then at JULIA.) Say, you got any recipes in there for rattlesnake pie? JULIA (Surprised). No, but if you'll buy a book, you'll find recipes for apple, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, peach, pear, plum, cherry, pumpkin, cranberry, huckleberry, and gooseberry pie. PASSER-BY 2 Naw, it has to be rattlesnake pie. That's all I got. (Pulls out rubber snake and waves it in front of JULIA, who jumps and squeals.) JULIA Never mind! I don't cook with snakes—dead or alive! PASSER-BY 2 (Slings rubber snake over his shoulder.) I'm gonna go see Ma. Maybe she'll have a recipe. (Shakes his head with disappointment, exits Stage Left.) SHORTY There's a pretty lady over there, John. But she's wearin' a funny hat. JOHN That's a chef's hat, Shorty. SHORTY You mean that pretty, little lady is a professional chef? What's she doin' out in the middle of Idaho? JOHN Cookin' potato soup, maybe. Oh, there's a sign. (Reads sign.) Julia Wild's Western Cookbook. Two-fifty. Sounds like it might be good. JULIA (In a friendly way.) Say, you look like two gentlemen who like to cook. JOHN Yes, er, Miss Wild, was it? (Checks the curlicue sign again.) I'm John Shane, and this is Shorty Vanderhoffenschmidt. We like to cook, yes, but most of our recipes include bacon and beans, unless Shorty gets on an arts and crafts streak like he did last winter. SHORTY (Defending himself.) Say, there's plenty of beans left, John. 'Course, a few of them taste a little bit like molasses and glue. JULIA Hm, well, as long as you don't ask for rattlesnake pie, there's all kinds of excellent recipes in this book (Holds up book next to her face and grins.) SHORTY Naw. Don't like rattlesnake pie. But my mother was the best at making porcupine pie and cherry pie. That's a winning combination! JOHN (Skeptical.) Porcupine pie? JULIA Porcupine pie, really? SHORTY Yeah, and in our neck of the woods, porcupines know they need to quill or be quilled. JOHN (Groans.) That's awful. (To JULIA.) I apologize for my sidekick's 'pun'-derful sense of humor. JULIA That is all right. So tell me about this "quiller' recipe? SHORTY Let's see. You need three cups of flour, one cup of water, and about half a cup of oil or lard, mixed together. You can make a crust out of that concoction. JULIA I see, so a basic pie crust. (Pulls a pie crust in a pie pan out from under table and sets it on table where everyone can see it.) But where does the porcupine come in? SHORTY Silly. Everyone knows a porcupine doesn't come in to the pie crust by himself. You gotta go catch him first! (JOHN and JULIA look at each other, confused.) JOHN What do you use for porcupine bait? SHORTY (Pulls a few beans out of his pocket.) Beans! Porcupines love them, especially if you have a little bit of glue and molasses on them. JOHN Hold on just a minute there, partner. You mean to say you were making arts and crafts all winter with our beans just so they would be ready to attract little, innocent porcupines? SHORTY No way! Well... Maybe. But anyway, the porcupines I catch are not so innocent! JULIA How on earth can you tell that by looking at them? SHORTY Because they use the beans I set out as bait to attract female porcupines. That indicates they have NEFARIOUS and NAUGHTY things on their minds. JOHN So anyway, after you have a porcupine, do you dispatch him to the hereafter? SHORTY Naw. I just whack him (Pretends to whack an invisible animal) and de-quill him. It's sort of like pulling all the pins and needles out of a pin cushion, if someone jammed them in the wrong direction. Then you fry what's left in butter or lard and plop him in the crust. And then you cover him up with a quill-ted lattice crust. JULIA Oh, my. (To JOHN.) You were right, he has a 'pun'-derful sense of humor. (To SHORTY.) Then how long do you cook the porcupine pie? SHORTY That's the secret, here. You bake it until your dog comes a'runnin' for a bite. So maybe forty minutes? JULIA Hm, this isn't a very scientific recipe. How in the world do you expect people to replicate this? What if you have an especially fast porcupine who doesn't like beans? SHORTY Well, then you got to take drastic steps. (Lowers voice, confidentially.) Why, sometimes you gotta dress up like a female porcupine to keep your prey distracted. JOHN Hold on, hold on, hold on, here! Shorty, you mean you have a porcupine costume? Where in Sam Hill do you keep it? (Peers around SHORTY and looks him up and down.) SHORTY (Sighs, as if he has to explain something very simple to a child.) It's right here, under my hat. (Lifts cowboy hat to reveal a roll of fabric and at least one quill showing.) And here is a porcupine all fried and ready to bake in the pie! (Unrolls part of the fabric roll and places a little gray ball of clay or salt dough in the pie crust.) You can just fill the rest of the space of the pie up with vegetables, if you 'carrot' all about making it first-rate. JULIA Lettuce see... I've been taking notes. And next you add the quill-ted style lattice top crust? SHORTY Right, then you can 'pork out' on your porcupine pie. (Lifts fork up in a meaningful way.) JULIA I shall name this: Pierre the Perfect Porcupine Pie. SHORTY (To JOHN.) Huh, and you thought PLAIN porcupine pie sounded a little weird. Lights down.
Anyone else a Julia Child fan? She definitely helped define the 1970s for me, since my mother watched her so often on TV.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. "where in Sam Hill" - this is an idiom, that takes the place of "Where in the world?" 
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