THE MISSING P-COCK

BUFFALO: Dude.

BIRD: Yes, dude?

BUFFALO: I've lost the fookin' peacock!

BIRD: Eh?

BUFFALO: The one we were gonna use for the pilot episode. Zip. Ka-kronken-ho! Vanished.

BIRD: Dude, you can't just lose a peacock without a trace. Try and think. When did you see it last?

BUFFALO: Well, I gave it a shower, like, after a hearty meal of Spam and sardines and a fossilized mouse I found behind the cupboard in Sparky's room, all washed down with a Bud, you understand.

BIRD: OK. Then what?

BUFFALO: Then I kicked that jerk-berk Sparky out of his room and put Ms Paycock to bed, tucked her in, an' all.

BIRD: A-ha. And in the morning?

BUFFALO: Da peacock was gone.

BIRD: Have you checked the balcony?

BUFFALO: Yep.

BIRD: The kiddies' playground?

BUFFALO: Yah-p.

BIRD: The shooting range.

BUFFALO: O fahhhh-k. The shooting range. Those guys, the ones with the fahhhh-k off Uzis... They like to take pot shots at things and animals... And in her burst for freedom... Wot time is it? There may still be hope. Pray for me birdy, Birdy!

BIRD: Crossing everything that doesn't snap here, dude!

SOME TIME LATER...

BUFFALO: Birdy, it's OK.

BIRD: Thank Gosh!

BUFFALO: Ms Paycock ain't at the shooting range. All I found were a coupla stray hogs and a trunk with a dozen dead parakeet in and a ransom note.

BIRD: Phew!

BUFFALO: But the range was sans peacock. Now wot?

BIRD: Gotta phone the cocks... I mean cops.

BUFFALO: Yeah, right. No, wait. It's just recurred to me that Sparky may have mistaken it for an ostrich, what with his lumbago an' all.

BIRD: An ostrich? Nice, lean meat. Very nutritious!

BUFFALO: I wondered what that was roasting on the spit while I was stirring me porridge. The stoopid bat-twat. The waxwork shagger's fookin' munched our peacock, dude.

BIRD: Omigosh! Fukkit! Where are we gonna get another peacock in time for the shoot this afternoon?

BUFFALO: I'm gonna kick that bastid's ass so hard, he'll wish he was born a nun.

BIRD: We're fooked. Finished before we started.

BUFFALO: No, no, no, no. Wait. For 50 clams we can have the perfect peacock that never was. If Sparky can mistake a peacock for an ostrich...

BIRD: Brillo, dude.

BUFFALO: And with a little make-up... We're gonna do this, dude. Nothing's gonna stop us now. Woo-hoo! Buff does it again.

BIRD: Great. Once you swish open that red curtain and...

BUFFALO: Red curtain...

BIRD: You have got the red curtain?

BUFFALO: Not egg sack Lee. Cindy's still working on it.

BIRD: Oh, for Freddy's sake. The best laid lambs an' all.

BUFFALO: Fukkit, dude. We'll go cgi. Nobody'll know. It's all cgi these days. Even the actors. I've got Photoshop and Adobe and shit, MS Word even. I'll do the whole thing on my laptop.

BIRD: Brilliant! Dude, you're a genius! Let's run thru the script one more time and then hit those pixels!

BUFFALO: Hmm. The script...

BIRD: You did save it?

BUFFALO: I er... it's nearly there, Birdy. I mean, it's so close I can lick it.

BIRD: How close?

BUFFALO: VERY close. Just needs tweaking.

BIRD: Out of a 30-minute pilot, how many minutes would you say are missing?

BUFFALO: Um... well... uh...

BIRD: How many?

BUFFALO: About 29.

BIRD: Ofukkit!

BUFFALO: But we can improvise. Some of the best comedy is improvised, innit. Look at Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's all spontaneous. It's great stuff. We can do this, dude. Just keep the faith.

BIRD: Dude, I'm going back to the Bore Fest now, the Orifice that must be obeyed, the place where I will eke out the rest of my days because you decided to fookup the only real chance we ever had of stardom. Thanks, dude. It was mammorable.

BUFFALO: Dude... Dude? You don't understand. Dude? So that's it. The only true friend I ever had. The one guy who stood by me no matter what. I haven't felt this bad since I had a "venous Doppler scan" done of my "lower extremities" including my Freddy. I'll talk him round. I know I will. Tomorrow's another day, right? Arf, arf!

TO BE CONTINUED...

BIRD: