[CLICK]
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, I don’t know how much time we have—
ARCHIVIST
Tho you thaid.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Is that—I say, is that really necessary, boy? You think I’m some kind of danger? You think I’m going to, what, suddenly reach out and do you harm? What do you possibly think I am going to do to you?
ARCHIVIST
I don’t trutht you.
[CLANG OF PIPE BEING SET ON DESK]
Handth where I can thee ‘em. Don’t try any funny buthinethth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Is that a joke, son?
ARCHIVIST
It’th not meant to be.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Listen, boy, you’re a smart lad, but you don’t know nothin’ about what’s goin’ on around here. Now, if havin’ that little trinket there makes you feel better, you can take it with you, but I can’t afford to just sit here, like some kind of hen on a nest, you understand what I’m sayin’, son?
ARCHIVIST
You can’t thit here? Tho talk fatht.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Oh, come on, duck, can’t we at least have this conversation in the tunnels?
ARCHIVIST
I’m not going back down there. That thing—ith it dead?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Not hardly likely. I don’t rightly think somethin’ like that can actually be destroyed. But it’s trapped good an’ proper. I hope for a very long time.
ARCHIVIST
And…Wile E? My actual aththithtant?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Was he—I say, was he the one it took? Sorry, boy, he’s gone. Whatever it does to the ones it takes, they’re dead, gone, pushin’ up the daisies, thoroughly Dipped, erased from the mortal coil, restin’ in—
ARCHIVIST
All right, all right, I get the picture!
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Do you need a moment?
ARCHIVIST
(Unconvincingly) No. No, I’m…fine.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I assume that means you’re going to help me, then?
ARCHIVIST
You firtht. You want my help, you anthwer my quethtionth. Agreed?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Fine, fine, whatever you say.
ARCHIVIST
Good.
Thtatement of Foghorn Leghorn. February thixthteenth, two thouthand theventeen. Thtatement beginth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
You’re a lot, I say a lot like she was, boy. I suppose that’s no surprise. The apple don’t fall very fah from the tree, you know.
Fine, ask your questions.
ARCHIVIST
Let’th thtart with what you did down there. How you trapped that…thing.
[SEVERAL BOOKS BEING PLACED ON A TABLE]
[THE ARCHIVIST AUDIBLY REACTS NEGATIVELY, IF QUIETLY]
FOGHORN LEGHORN
A complete and un-ex-PUR-guh-ted copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even start writin’ the thing until 1846, which ought to tell you somethin’ about the nature of this here book. This one’s a lot different than the one that was widely distributed, too. Gives you a mighty fine sense of the walls pressin’ in on you, and if you read it too recklessly, it’ll end up trapping you good and proper.
Over the years, I’ve discovered that it interacts very nicely with the architecture of those tunnels, in a much more predictable way. Same for any architecture Smirke has done, of course, but the tunnels in particular. I read out the right passages in the right places, and I can bend those tunnels to my will as easily as a marble-headed mutt.
ARCHIVIST
I didn’t hear you read anything down there.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
There you go, boy, bein’ all narrow-minded. Closed in on yourself. Thinkin’ everything has to be just as you expect it to be or it ain’t happenin’. Who ever said I had to read it out loud, son?
ARCHIVIST
…Right. Tho you can move the tunnelth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, hold on, son, it’s not so easy as all that. All right, I know what I said, but it ain’t exactly easy, you know, and it’s hard to get things exactly precise. Takes a little while, don’cha see? Though come to think of it, I did move things around a little bit for you while you were doin’ your explorin’ and all. Closed off a passage here and there, remade a couple more. Kept you out of my way while I decided if I wanted to make contact, you understand what I’m sayin’, boy?
ARCHIVIST
I aththume that’th why you left me the arrowth? And the trash? Tho I’d get curiouth and keep going?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I did not—I say, I did not leave that trash around on purpose. Thought I was doin’ a good job cleanin’ up after myself, pickin’ up the ol’ trail, but you’ve got keen eyes. Keener than I’d give you credit for, if I’m being honest. I know, I know, a cartoon’s a cartoon and life is life, but you never came across as the observant type.
ARCHIVIST
(Dryly) Thankth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
As for the arrows? That wasn’t me, boy. Think that was your, uh, Not-Wile E…
ARCHIVIST
Ralph. He—it called itthelf Ralph Wolf.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Hmm. Never heard of the Not-Them changin’ its name, but I suppose that makes sense. Can’t all be as lucky as me, after all.
ARCHIVIST
Ath lucky ath you? What’th that thuppothed to mean?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I mean, boy, that I only ever had one director my entire Golden Age career. Even Yosemite Sam and poor ol’ Wile E. Coyote occasionally had a different director, with a different animation team, and different animators sometimes mean different drawing styles.
You wouldn’t have been scared if somethin’ callin’ itself Wile E. Coyote looked a bit different and you remembered the other way, because you’d have thought it was a new animator. But the same face with a different name? I’d imagine there’s at least one fella who you remember as havin’ been in a cartoon with, uh, Ralph Wolf who was actually in a cartoon with Wile E., and it’s probably drivin’ him batty that everyone swears he never did.
ARCHIVIST
(As if to himself) The Road Runner…
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I sup—I say, I suppose that’s logical. I thought a wolf in the American southwest didn’t make a lick o’ sense.
ARCHIVIST
Let’th get back to the point. What’th thith other book?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I’d hardly call it a book, son. Barely a pamphlet, really. It’s simply called A Disappearance. If you read it front to back, it takes you out of this world altogether. Now, I’m none too sure what that actually means, really, only that when I gave it to my assistant to read, I never saw him again.
I have discovered, though, that if I just read one or two words, that’s enough to hide me from the peepin’ eyes of your master. That was enough to let me talk to Granny without bein’ observed, and come above ground ever’ once in a while when I needed to.
ARCHIVIST
My mathter—we’ll come back to that. How long have you been down there?
[SEVERAL SECONDS’ PAUSE]
I thought you were in thuch a hurry? Anthwer the quethtion! How long have you been in thothe tunnelth?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
(Surprised) You know, son, that’s a darned good question. I’ve been in hidin’ since my library was destroyed, but—no, that’s ridiculous! That’s absurd! That don’t make no sense, boy! Why, my library was destroyed twenty years ago, and—
ARCHIVIST
That explainth the shortth. I knew you weren’t actually on the thet of Looney Tuneth: Back in Action becauthe I had it thpecifically put in my contractth that I never had to shoot a thcene with you again, tho they’d have uthed thomeone elthe for the blackjack dealer, but the shortth were garbage. Maketh thenthe if it wathn’t—that’th not the point.
You’ve been in thethe tunnelth thinthe filming wrapped on Thpathe Jam?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
(Slowly, like he’s still trying to put pieces together) Well, obv—I say, obviously I haven’t been under the Institute the whole time. The ol’ Millbank Prison system stretches an awfully long way, and there are more entrances than you have here in your Archives. I got a few, uh…secure locations, but ever since Granny died, I’ve been a bit on the reluctant side to venture out. I don’t like spendin’ too much time out in the open.
See, it’s an odd position for a barnyard chicken to find himself in, but I am always bein’ hunted, son. Both by things like what was just chasing you—monsters, boy, things that go bump in the night—and, well, by ordinary folks who blame me for the books that caused the deaths of their loved ones. Why, three years ago I made the mistake of spendin’ a whole night outside my safe houses. Nearly got m’self beat to death by an angry Goth.
ARCHIVIST
Ha! That would be our Gerard. (He pronounces this the American way.)
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I beg your pardon, suh?
ARCHIVIST
I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He died a couple of yearth ago.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now you done gone an’ missed the whole darn point!
ARCHIVIST
Tho are you to blame?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Who, me? Am I to blame? Certainly not, suh! I’m no Marvin Acme, creatin’ things and not carin’ who they harm. Nah, son, I put my name on those books to collect ‘em. Why, I was tryin’ to contain ‘em. I thought I could control ‘em.
I was wrong. I admit it—I was wrong. I was a fool, son. I thought there were rules to these kinds o’ things. Sure, I knew they were dangerous, but I thought they were just books. Thought I could just read ‘em, use ‘em a little, don’cha know, that I could find the limits and keep them contained.
Now, I won’t say I never let nobody get hurt tryin’ to do all that. I can’t tell you how many assistants I went through tryin’ to learn those secrets, but I thought it would be worth it in the end. And after all, we are Toons, you understand what I’m sayin’, boy? I thought they’d be fine in the end, maybe a little off, maybe not want to ever work with me again, but I was so sure that it would be worth it in the end. I was like Pandora in reverse. I was like Zeus with the Titans. I was Aladdin with his lamp. I was going to lock them all away, you understand me?
I thought, I say, I thought if I put my name on those there books, it would make it easier to find if they went a-wanderin’. But deep in my heart of hearts, I suppose I wanted my name to become synonymous with greatness. That someone might see ‘the Library of Foghorn Leghorn’ and know a great man had protected them. Instead…well, I suppose it’s fittin’ in a way that nobody speaks my name now unless they are cursing it.
I don’t think they even show my cartoons all that much anymore. Certainly not the ones where I come out on top.
ARCHIVIST
Tell me about it. From the title card.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now let me be perfectly clear.
[SHORT PAUSE]
…Huh.
ARCHIVIST
Thith ithn’t a cartoon, you know.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I know, I know, but you’d think the universe would have some pity on us and let us keep a few little things.
Anyway, as I was sayin’…I need to make this perfectly clear. A lot of this is kinda fuzzy on me. I don’t rightly recall how I got started with all this collectin’ and catalogin’ and what have you. One minute I was a simple country boy, tormentin’ the barnyard dog, guardin’ the hens, all of that, and the next…here I was. But I can recall bits and pieces, as it were. A few moments here and there. Just don’t expect it to be a full cartoon, boy. There might be a bit of jumpin’ around, is what I’m sayin’. Not that we’re any stranger to that, are we?
I never went to war, you know. Not like most of the Toons who were actin’ in the post-war days. Never served a day in my life, me. I was older than you might think, but I was also my ol’ man’s only son—only living son, that is—and he was gettin’ on in years. I got drafted, sure enough, just like we all did, but when my number came up, I just presented them with all the proof that my daddy needed me to help run the farm, and just like that, I was 3-C. Stayed right at home, the whole time. But we’d only just barely hung on through the Great Depression when I was no more than a chick, and even once the war was over, well, a small farm like ours struggled. He died just before the war ended, and just after, I found out he’d had the whole kit an’ kaboodle mortgaged to the hilt. The bank came a-callin’ and the mortgage came due and I didn’t have it.
Now, I’d have sold it in a heartbeat, son, but my mama was still alive then, and she couldn’t bear the thought of leavin’ the place she’d lived with my daddy all those years, so I had to come up with somethin’ fast, don’t you see? And then, I say then I saw an ad in the paper for a new idea for a cartoon—somethin’ starrin’ a good ol’ country boy of a rooster. My ol’ college chum, Rhode Island Red, was the one who sent it to me. He said he’d thought of applyin’ himself, but he thought I might fit the role better. So I gave it a whirl, and apparently I did well enough that I got it. Made enough money to pay off the bills, and there was even some left over. Robert McKimson said he liked the way Barnyard Dawg and I handled ourselves—liked our onscreen chemistry—and signed me to a contract. It was enough to make my mama’s last years comfortable, so I agreed. I did sell the farm after she died. No real reason to keep it, really. The actin’ bug had bit me well an’ good by then, and I wanted to keep goin’. I took her books back to Toon Town proper with me, o’ course, read through ‘em between auditions and films, an’ when I was done I went a-lookin’ for more.
You know, I can’t rightly remember how I found out about the books of power. Remember my first one well enough, though. Old leather-bound thing called The Stalwart Hunter’s Almanac. It had been in the possession of one, uh, Colonel Shuffle, I believe? Didn’t rightly get his name. He was never a prolific actor, you might say, and he never came up again—fella who looked like him did, but it wasn’t him. Believe you me, the way he died, and the way that book described some o’ those mutilations, there was no survivin’ that. Meant I took precautions, boy.
I think, I say, I think that what saved me, largely, was that I never once fell victim to the thought that I could safely read these books with no consequences simply because I was a Toon. We are resilient, suh, we bounce back from things that would make a lesser mortal think twice, but we are still ephemeral, you might say. We can be eradicated, erased, twisted out of shape or recognition, even destroyed, and those books can surely help with that quite well. So I was careful. I made sure I did not read too closely into things, and I kept the book on a special shelf. But I knew, I say I knew that there could hardly not be more than one, and so I went lookin’. Took me less than a week to find my next one, and after that, suh, it seemed I had my purpose in life.
The actin’ gigs dried up about then, but I didn’t mind none. Had me a tidy nest egg, and I learned easily enough that I often got better prices for these books of power if I bought them in a lot of books rather than negotiatin’ for one book only. Made it less suspicious, don’t you see? Made it look more like I was just an eccentric bibliophile, rather than a serious collector and curator. Then I could sell those books I didn’t want for more money, and use that money to buy my next lot of books. I hired my first assistant not long after gettin’ my first couple. Real dour fella, not much of a smiler. Don’t think he lasted two weeks.
I didn’t concern myself too much at first with where they came from. I simply made sure I got ‘em, and had what staff I could spare to study ‘em. It was easier than I thought, really, and there’s a part of me surprised nobody ever thought of it before, but…well, I supp—I say, I suppose not many people walk away from their first encounter wantin’ more. I never was a very good man on the screen, don’cha know, but I assure you, my job before that put me in a very protective position. I’m not the blusterin’ bully I played in my shorts any more than you’re the schemin’ idiot you played. My purpose was to contain and control the evil within the books.
Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t have my share of trouble, mind. Some o’ those books didn’t exactly play nice together, made a bit of a mess if you kept ‘em on the same shelf, or even in the same room. But I’d learned by then that Robert Smirke’s work on balance an’ all that had a bit of a calmin’ effect. Today’s hardly the first time Smirke’s architecture saved my life, boy. Nobody’d missed me for a bit, so I moved over here to London, got me a place near enough some of his buildings he’d worked on and built me a place usin’ his designs that all combined to let me store ‘em safely. About that time is when I commissioned my bookplates and started labeling ‘em.
I had nine hundred seventy-eight volumes when all was said an’ done. Some fairly tame, some pretty unnervin’, an’ some outright dangerous. In the end, I didn’t have much time to enjoy my triumph. Only a few years after the house was complete, it was attacked.
You have to understand, son, I’d only ever seen these…dark forces in books, an’ occasionally in an antique or two. I had no idea there were people who followed these things. I wasn’t prepared. All my defenses, such as they were, were focused inward.
It started with the visitors. One or two at a time, stoppin’ by, askin’ to see my collection. Now, I was not, I say, I was not just goin’ around tellin’ everyone what I was up to. Secret ambitions or no, I was keepin’ my work to myself. Keepin’ it safe. Keepin’ it private. An’ yet, there they were, wantin’ to borrow books. They looked, you’ll pardon my sayin’, like Toons pretendin’ to be human. Didn’t strike me as odd back then, o’ course, nothin’ to really concern myself with on that end, and I simply politely and firmly told them to leave. An’ then I got the call from Ivan Reitman personally askin’ me to come back for Space Jam. I was goin’ to decline, but the amount of money he offered me would have set me up for life, so, perhaps foolishly, I agreed. I told my staff not to let anyone look at the books while I was gone. They promised, an’ when I got back from filmin’, they’d sure kept that promise, but I did note I was down a couple.
Even then, I didn’t see the danger. It all happened so…fast. One minute I was typin’ up a catalog entry for A Journal of a Plague Year, an’ the next…why, everythin’, I say everythin’ was screamin’. My assistants, the books, even me.
They were human. All o’ them, human. I’d tried workin’ with Toons, thought they might be better at acceptin’ the nature of the things—but I’d found the opposite. Toons question. It ain’t supposed to be like that outside o’ places like Toon Town, don’cha know, so they asked too many questions, got stuck in too many impossibilities, whereas humans—what did that fella say once? They’ll believe anythin’ if the pay’s right. But because they were human…they went down. Thomas McMann was stabbed through the throat by something with too many teeth and limbs like knives. Mary Johnson was pulled into a cavernous maw that opened beneath her. Gregory Todd ran into a door that shouldn’t have been there, that wasn’t there before. A big ol’ hand I’d’a thought was an animator’s if I hadn’t known better reached right through the roof an’ grabbed Leandra Toulouse. An’ there’s one more I don’t…I can’t remember his name, boy, but last I saw him, he was bein’ pulled under a giant, pulsatin’ pile o’ meat.
I don’t know how I escaped, to be honest with you, boy. Might’ve been that since I designed the place, I knew it better, knew how to get out. Might’ve been I saw what rooms to avoid—rooms where the darkness was too oppressive or that burned with a fire that consumed everythin’ but the books themselves. Might’ve been they just let me go. Might’ve just been my luck. Numberin’ my feathers, you know what I’m sayin’, son?
I didn’t look back. Nothin’ came after me. It was the books they wanted, after all, an’ I didn’t have none of those with me. O’ course, by the time I realized that, there were plenty others after my blood. Those who’d known someone hurt by the books that now had my name on ‘em. I’d thought I was keepin’ ‘em safe. All I did was give ‘em someone to hate. It was easier to let the world think I was dead, an’ I’ve more or less been hidin’ ever since.
ARCHIVIST
Hmph. You were right.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
About which part?
ARCHIVIST
You were a fool.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
(Sigh) I suppose I deserve that.
ARCHIVIST
Why didn’t you jutht burn them?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Pride, I suppose. If they were destroyed, why, what was I to guard? An’ besides, I don’t think that would solve quite so many problems as you reckon it would. Some o’ those books wouldn’t burn. Some would probably like it. An’ I wonder now if the power wasn’t bein’ constrained in those books, if burnin’ ‘em wouldn’t’ve just let ‘em free to take on new forms.
ARCHIVIST
And you didn’t figure any of thith out when you had almotht a thouthand of them in your poththteththion?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
We can’t all be perfect on our first go, boy. I’ve spent the last twenty years tryin’ to learn from my mistakes.
ARCHIVIST
You thaid you didn’t take any bookth with you. Where did you get thethe?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Granny, of course. When I started workin’ with her, she hunted down some editions she thought might help.
ARCHIVIST
HA! And why would she be helping you?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Apart from how much I knew about books? I think she was lonely. I ran into her about, oh, six years ago, just after she lost her last assistant. She used to talk about ‘em from time to time—I think one might’a been Sylvester. I do believe she missed havin’ someone to talk to on occasion, don’cha know.
ARCHIVIST
I—I didn’t know Granny had—wait, Thylvethter? I thaw him jutht—a-a couple yearth ago?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I never—I say, I never said they all died, boy, just that she lost ‘em all. Three altogether. Sylvester, I think, was able to quit the Institute and go back to Toon Town. The other two, though, they did not end pretty, I must say. So when Granny found me, it seemed natural that we help one another. In this case, that meant findin’ certain useful books.
ARCHIVIST
Like the Key of Tholomon?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
That one was a mistake, no doubt about that. I had hoped that in the tunnels, there might be enough stability to examine it properly, learn somethin’ about the forces arrayed against us, you see what I’m sayin’, son? But it all went bad. We had to destroy it. I ought to have known, really, it was one of the few volumes that had parts of more than one of the powers.
ARCHIVIST
Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. You keep talking about thethe…powerth. Thethe fortheth arrayed againtht you. What are they?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Typical, boy, typical. I’d hoped you would know some of this by now, but it’s clear you’re watchin’ without really understandin’. Not fair of me to expect that. It ain’t your job, son. You’re the watcher, the observer, not the connector. Granny could be like that sometimes. Why, I remember when—
ARCHIVIST
Ahhhh, shaddup!
[PIPE CLANGS ON THE TABLE]
Jutht…tell me!
FOGHORN LEGHORN
There are…entities in this world. Bein’s of dark, unimaginable power. Maybe it’s better to say they’re next to this world rather than all the way in it, you get what I’m sayin’? What they are, really are deep down, it couldn’t exist in this world, not like it is now. Nothin’ they’ve got in their pure state could exist in this world, so they sit in…
ARCHIVIST
Different dimenthionth?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
No, boy, not dimensions, don’t be daft. If there are such things, they’re linked to ours, like cells on a film strip. They may not be in our world, but they can reach through and affect it by reachin’ through an’ imposin’ their will. I’m not sure where they came from, or why, but as far as I can tell, they are effectively immortal.
ARCHIVIST
Tho…what, they’re animatorth? Like that one thketch I did with Bugth, um—Duck Amok?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I suppose that might be a helpful analogy. They aren’t exactly, but…we can go from there. They don’t just affect Toons, though. Humans fall under their thrall all the time. But sure, son, if it helps you to think of them as animators, that’s somethin’ we can work with.
ARCHIVIST
The people then, the bookth—they’re like…other actorth?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
More like…brushes. Ink. A pencil or a—what are those new-fangled things they’ve been usin’ these days? A stylus or a mouse cursor. They’re tools. The books might be more like a finger or a hand—the powers concentrated down, distilled into form. Like—(snaps fingers) like those cartoons from the nineties, the ones the Warners starred in—remember how Mr. Spielberg appeared in one or two? That’s the books. A representation of the animator, or director or whatever.
The servants, though…now, we’re talkin’ about people who used to be people who’ve started workin’ for these things, and a little about the ones created by the powers, or maybe what takes ‘em over after—like that thing down in the tunnels. They’ve got a bit more free will, a bit more agency, you see. They aren’t directly controlled by the forces. They can act on their own.
ARCHIVIST
Like a—a muthcle, thpathming on reflexth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Say, that’s not half bad.
ARCHIVIST
That exthplainth Woody’th identity iththueth.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Woody? Oh—that’s, I say that’s what the Distortion is callin’ itself these days, isn’t it? That one’s part of what my assistant Speedy used to call “Esmentiaras”—I never did much in the way of Spanish, mind you, but I think that translates to somethin’ like “it is lies” or “it is lying”. Anyway, I always called it the Spiral. At the time, of course, we just used it as a way to classify books. It’s all about foolin’ the senses, don’cha know, makin’ you see and hear things that aren’t there, drawin’ you into mazes, makin’ you doubt your own sanity. And you’d think that would be mighty hard, for a Toon, but those things just don’t happen off set, do they?
ARCHIVIST
No. No, they…
What about boneth? Ith one of them thomething to do with…boneth?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, there you go again, takin’ everything so literally. It isn’t about the bones, boy, not exactly. Think about what they mean, not what they are. In the Distortion, in your Woody, the bones are the skeleton stretched all wrong, bendin’ in ways even a Toon shouldn’t bend. But there are other cases, other rules. What if the bones are a symbol of butchery and slaughter and war? What if they’re a symbol of somethin’ made wrong? What if they’re just part of a messy body?
ARCHIVIST
Thorry, thith ith…thith ith a lot to take in.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Well, open that big beak o’ yours and swallow it, boy, ‘cause we’ve wasted enough time on your questions!
ARCHIVIST
Fine. Then I’ll make thith thimple. Did you kill Granny?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Certainly not, son! Don’t be a fool!
ARCHIVIST
Then who did?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
You’re gettin’ all worked up over nothin’, boy! You’re not in any danger from—
ARCHIVIST
Jutht anthwer the quethtion!
FOGHORN LEGHORN
I be—I say, I believe it was Elias.
ARCHIVIST
Who?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Elias, boy! Elias Bouchard! The one who used to be Head of the Institute before Bugs took it over!
ARCHIVIST
Oh, right, Bugth did mention—wait. Wait, that doethn’t…
Wath he a Toon?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Elias? No. Fully human. I told you, most of this ain’t Toon-related. The Bouchards are a pretty well connected family in London.
ARCHIVIST
Then how did he have a gun that could kill a Toon? How did he know it would work? Everybody knowth you can’t kill a Toon.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Do they?
ARCHIVIST
What’th that thuppothed to mean?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Think about it, boy! Use that head o’ yours for somethin’ other than storin’ ol’ rags!
Dip don’t leave bodies behind. Toons don’t have corpses…but Granny was dead. Therefore…
ARCHIVIST
(Gulps) She’th a…really…thkilled…actrethth?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
When’s the last time you looked in a mirror, son?
ARCHIVIST
I don’t thpend a lot of time thtaring at mythelf. I know what I look like.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Well, may—I say, maybe if you did, you’d have noticed.
The scars, boy. The holes. The places where the worms that came with Jane Prentiss burrowed their way into your body. You still have the marks.
ARCHIVIST
What? No, that’th—that’th not poththible. Toonth don’t thcar, not unlethth they’re the bad guyth, and even then it’th—
FOGHORN LEGHORN
—always over the eye, I know.
But how many times have you said it yourself? This ain’t no cartoon, boy. This is the real world. Even with monsters and fearsome beings and all of that, this is reality. And in reality, scars don’t vanish. And people can die.
You’ve been away from Toon Town for too long, boy. You’ve stepped away from being a Toon to be real. The longer you separate yourself from that, the further from it you become…and the closer to human you become. Granny had been here for years. And she was never all that Toonish to begin with. Nothin’ ever happened to her, don’cha know. So much easier for her to be real enough to die.
And now you are too.
ARCHIVIST
I—I need thome air.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
This ain’t the time for a breakdown, boy!
[A CHAIR IS PUSHED BACK]
ARCHIVIST
I’m going to have a thigarette. Don’t…
[THE DOOR OPENS]
Don’t.
[THE DOOR CLOSES]
FOGHORN LEGHORN
(Sighs) Boy tries his hardest, but he’s not too bright, and I don’t think he’s got the stomach for this.
[BRIEF SILENCE]
[THE DOOR OPENS]
[FOGHORN LEGHORN GASPS]
BUGS
Well, well, well. Lookie who we’ve got here.
[FOGHORN LEGHORN STANDS UP, THE CHAIR SCRAPING AGAINST THE FLOOR]
BUGS
I wouldn’t reach for dat, if I was you.
[FOGHORN LEGHORN SITS AGAIN]
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, were you lurkin’ outside that door, or up in your office, I wonder?
BUGS
Oh, come on, Foggy, give me some credit, eh? I let you have a little privacy.
How much have you told him?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Enough.
BUGS
About Granny?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
There wasn’t enough time for that.
BUGS
Oh, did Daffy waste all his pwecious time on questions he t’ought were impoitant? And you let him?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, hold—I say, hold on a minute, suh!
(Pause) How did you know I was down here?
BUGS
I didn’t. You’re very well hidden. Daffy, however, is not, and he isn’t taking the same precautions I’m sure you took for granted with Granny. I knew he was talking to someone. And it toined out to be Foghorn Leghorn himself. (Laughs) What an honor.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Look, I say look—Bugs, we both know what you are. I wasn’t going to—
BUGS
What did you want from him?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
The files. The ones that were on Granny.
BUGS
Planning a little criminal mischief, are we?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, hold on, Bugs, it’s not just the Institute and you know that. They had everythin’ she had on the Stranger.
BUGS
I know. It’s, eh…whaddya call it…
FOGHORN LEGHORN
(Slowly) The Unknowing.
BUGS
Real creative, ain’t it?
FOGHORN LEGHORN
You of all people ought to want to stop ‘em.
BUGS
And we will! But I don’t think we need a giant chicken to help.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
And, eh—eh, w-what’s he goin’ to think when he comes back, eh?
BUGS
Well, he was always going to have to fly da nest at some point, eh? Go out and see da woild for himself.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
He might die. And he knows that now.
BUGS
It’s always a danger.
[SLIGHT SCRAPE OF PIPE ON DESK]
Almost always.
FOGHORN LEGHORN
Now, now, now, now, now—hold on a minute, Bugs—please—
[EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER]
[PIPE CLATTERS ON THE FLOOR]
BUGS
(Darkly) Ain’t I a stinker?
[BUGS LEAVES THE OFFICE AND CLOSES THE DOOR BEHIND HIMSELF]
[SEVERAL MOMENTS OF SILENCE, SAVE AN ALMOST OMINOUS DRIPPING]
[DOOR OPENS AGAIN]
ARCHIVIST
Thorry. I wath never much of a thmoker even back in the dayth when it theemed like everyone did it, but—
[FIVE SECONDS OF SILENCE]
[MEL BLANC SCREAM]
[CLICK]