THE ORIGIN STORYOver at the WorldVision general broadcaster’s headquarters, they received a package. After scanning it to make sure it wasn’t anything illegal or dangerous or even contaminated, they brought it over to the head honchos who then proceeded to open the box it arrived in. Inside was a video cassette with a couple of blank labels on it and a lot of writing on it: “Dr Who - Marco Polo”, “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket”, “London After Midnight”, “Nobody Ordered Love”, “Saki Sanobashi”, almost all of the writing had been crossed off as if it had been taped over many times. There was one exception, however. A small bit of writing that was just squeezed in that said “Placely Placington WV87 host bid”. A bit unusual but just as long as it actually contained the host bid in question then it should be good enough. The representative from Beepee was fortunate enough to bring out a VCR player and, once everything was set up, the tape was popped in and everyone gathered around to watch it. It might actually have a host bid on it!
The logo for the contest. Breaking kayfabe here for a brief second because I want to say if there’s any copyright issues or anything like that then please let me know so I can get a different logo made. Sure there’s Fair Use and all that and it’s supposed to be all crappily copied because that’s PP’s ethos but I don’t want to cause any unnecessary hassles.
as the logo played on screen for about 15 seconds. It was completely static, with no effects whatsoever. The music and the logo faded out and instead we’re greeted with Dave McDaverson smoking out of a pipe. He took a couple of smokes from it, letting out long exhales a couple of seconds after each one, before he turned around in his seat and was greeted by the camera. Completely surprised by all of this, he hurriedly threw his pipe to one side and sat up straight. “Hello!” He said, paying no attention to the bit of paperwork that was now starting to catch on fire. “I’m Dave McDaverson, the Chief President Man of Placely Placington.” He then pointed down at what would’ve been the bottom of the screen and moved his hand around. There wasn’t a caption on screen to show it, the budget didn’t stretch that far. “And I want to tell you why Placely Placington should host the 87th WorldVision Song Contest. Sure we’ve all heard the news reports about mass corruption, widespread epidemics, high death rates and mass stupidity but those are all lies! There’s so much more to Citysburgh and Placely Placington and I want you all to take a tour with me.”
PART ONE: THE COUNTRY
We then get a title screen with the above phrase and a repeat of the same stock music from earlier. Then we now cut to the middle of Citysburgh. It just looks like your bog-standard American city from any cartoon provided you’ve been watching some really crummy cartoons. In the middle of the shot was Dave, holding both of his thumbs up. “Here we are in Citysburgh.” He said, beginning his bit. “The capital city of Placely Placington. Founded in… some date by… some guy, it’s where we do capital things. It’s our only city, so we do city things here too! And we have plenty of city things here too. And we like to do city things too. We city every day here. We’re the citiest city out there, that’s how much we like to city!”
“Did you forget your lines again, sir?” Television Director asked from behind the camera.
“No!” Dave replied, obviously lying.
Glorious Citysburgh. Absolutely majestic, ain’t it?
All credit for bottom right goes to u/northvanseb over on Reddit, as it was originally their picture.We then cut to a field in the middle of nowhere. Behind Dave McDaverson is Chief Economist standing next to a chain-link fence that’s barely a metre long. Dave looked at the fence behind him before back at the camera. “Over here we have the Eagle Fence.” He said, beginning to explain what the thing was behind him. “We have a problem with eagles dropping pianos onto people, so we had this fence built. It’s six feet high but that’s because we don’t know how to build it any higher. Chief Economist over there is for size comparison by the way.” Chief Economist waved and said something but due to the distance he couldn’t be heard clearly. “On the upside, the holes are small enough to stop any eagles flying through and dropping pianos onto us.” Just as he said that last bit, a piano started to drop out of the sky and it immediately flattened Chief Economist, the resulting loud DOUNG! filling the air. Dave McDaverson grimaced and slowly turned his head to see a piano sticking out of a piano-shaped crater. He then turned to face the camera and then shrugged as he carried on walking, with Television Director following him.
After a two minute walk in complete silence, which would’ve been cut out by a more sane editor, we finally get to a shot of Dave standing right in front of a river. At least, it’s supposed to be a river as I’m not sure if water’s supposed to be that vermilion. There were also a whole load of chalky white mountain-shaped things in the background, one of which appeared to have a mine on it. Dave then spoke again. “And in the background we have The Mountain Range but over down here we have the river. Our River. Look at it, it’s a majestic thing, isn’t it? And the water’s ready and safe for drinking.” He immediately pulled a glass out of nowhere and scooped out some of the water. Then he drank a few glugs before he stopped and moved the glass down. “Ah! Dee-lishus!” He said, his jaw dissolving into dust while he was speaking.
The glorious Placingtonian countryside. Not pictured: a lake that explodes due to the water being contaminated with rubidium.
Once again, we cut back to Dave McDaverson, now with a working jaw again. As we’re walking along, we then see Dave standing outside of a building. In the background, there are sirens as a huge cloud of smoke billows in the distance. “So now I’ve shown you the sights and sounds and scenes of Placely Placington, let’s talk about things to do. We have plenty of cultural things to do here. We have freak pointing, we have waiting in line, we have embez-” Dave immediately paused before speaking again. “Er, buying things. We’re an entirely safe and clean country and rumours about me dying from the coronavirus twice in one day are lies. Lies and slander!”
At that point an actual coronavirus large enough to be visible to the naked eye bobbed up and down as, in the background, it floated past Dave. “Mornin’ Dave!” It said in a deep voice, completely casual as if it was going about its day and wanted to greet someone it knew.
Dave looked a bit miffed at the camera before smiling again. “Anyway, with that out of the picture, I’m sure you’re wondering how we keep coming back despite dying a few times. Follow me.” He walked into the building and Television Director followed him. A few more minutes of walking, they reach a platform with a giant machine directly in front of it and connected by another platform. There were some loud pulsating sounds and a few flashes of green light from the glass display that also acts as a door. “This is the Clonomat. It automatically clones a new one of us whenever we have an accident with their old one. And I think we’ve got a new person with us.”
There was a bright green flash that lasted a couple of seconds before the display door opened and out walked a newly cloned Chief Economist. The new clone looked at its surroundings before immediately noticing something was up and had a massive crisis. “WHERE AM I? WHAT HAPPENED? I REMEMBER A PIANO HITTING ME AND NOW I’VE WOKEN UP HERE AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I GOT HERE WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME-” As the newly cloned Chief Economist broke down, Dave pressed a bright blue button. “GANIH!” Chief Economist said as he immediately straightened himself out and fell to the ground, completely rigid and completely dead.
Dave opened up a hatch and pushed what was the clone of Chief Economist down it before closing it again. He stood back up straight and spoke.“Sorry about that, WorldVision peoples. That’s not supposed to happen, we sometimes get a few mistakes that manage to get made but we deal with them as quickly as possible.” After stepping away and moving to one side, just so the Clonomat and its flashes won’t ruin the shot, Dave finished his bit. “Anyway, beautiful city, beautiful country, please come and visit, yadda yadda yadda. So, with further to do, let’s have a look at the stage our performers will be performing their performances on. Perform!”
PART TWO: THE STAGE
The stage. In reality it’ll be twice as big and a couple of feet higher off the ground than the one in the picture.
At least it’s not another fucking 360° stage.After a quick title card with the stock music from earlier making a reappearance, we then cut to Dave McDaverson standing in front of a stage in the middle of a different field. He was wearing a bright orange hard hat and there was a Test Subject wearing the same kind of hat, same colour too, right behind him just hammering away at the floorboards. Dave then turned to his side and pointed right at the stage behind him. It was a cheap but simple wooden stage, the kind you’d probably get knocked out in a day or two. “This is the stage everyone will be performing on.” He said, breaking the silence. “It’s very stagey. It should be big enough for all of our entrants to perform on. We haven’t had any accidents for the past three days either, so you know we’re super safe.”
Just as soon as he said that, a Test Subject immediately fell through the stage. Despite only falling not even half an inch, he died upon impact with the ground. Dave made an annoyed look at the camera at which point Television Director spoke again. “Just keep speaking, sir, let’s just pretend it never happened.”
Dave nodded and then carried on his bit. As you can see, we can’t really afford too many special effects. And we can’t stick them in either. We can’t have pyros. It’s wood, they’ll say it’ll burn. We can’t really afford a fan machine or a whole load of coloured lights or anything like that. But! We’ve got a better idea. We’ve hired a whole load of midg-”
Television Director immediately interrupted. “You can’t say that, sir.”
“Dwar-”
“I don’t think you can say that either.”
“Little people?” Television Director nodded and the camera shook up and down with him. “Little people. We hired a whole load of little people who’ll run up and down the bottom of the stage with flashlights and fans and lighters and signs for the right effects. It won’t be perfect, there was a small incident with pulled pork that I can’t really go into any detail with, but it should still provide your entrants with enough flashy things to make everyone interested.”
PART THREE: THE HOST
The man, the myth, the legend himself Chief President Man Dave McDaverson. No, I don’t know why he seems to have a gun either.
After the title card showing the above phrase is displayed for five seconds, with the stock music making its return, we then cut to the same thing again. Dave looked into the camera and without missing a beat said “It’s me. I’m hosting. You can’t get much better than the Chief President Man himself of the entire country hosting your song competition. But I won’t be going it alone, as I’ll have a friend to help us with the televoting mathing.” He then walked along and came up to a small cardboard box, one the size of a ring box. He tapped the top of it and stepped back, with the flaps opening and Dave the Hobo worming his head out of the box. Dave McDaverson looked down at Dave the Hobo and simply asked. “Do you want to help me with our song contest?”
Almost immediately, Dave the Hobo answered “Get the hell out of here, you’re turning my joyride into a hellride!” He then disappeared back into his box and started to sing another song on his keyboard.
Dave McDaverson immediately turned back to the camera and said “I’ll ask him again later.”
PART FOUR: THE POSTCARDS
A still from the video showing what one of the postcards would look like, with the winning entry from last time being an example. In reality, it’s also what my laptop screen looks like. It is that manky in real life.
After the title card showing the above title, with the stock music making its unwelcome appearance yet again, we then cut to a dank office. Not in the memey sense, whatever that means, but rather because the office itself seems to be a damp, depressive hellhole. A complete beigey-grey with holes in the ceiling where you can see the asbestos poke through. At one end of the office, or more accurately the only end visible in the shot, we see two sets of doors and, in between them, a big golden statue of Dave McDaverson, replete with jewels and all that good stuff. The real Dave was standing next to a cubicle, his hands together, before he spoke up. “And here we have our creative studio. It’s also for other things but we’ve also made it into a creative studio. And this is where we’ve made our logos and where we’re making our postcards. Let’s have a look at one right now.”
Dave walked into the cubicle and Television Director joined him shortly afterwards. Television Director wormed his way over to the computer and stood right in front of it, getting a good shot of the postcard that had just finished being made. Of course, as it was just a test one, it instead displayed the winner from the last contest instead. Unfortunately, Dave didn’t know that. “Wha- Hib- That’s not the right person representing them!” He said angrily to the Test Subject who immediately stopped slapping his hands against the keyboard and mouse. He then picked up a used shopping bag and held it up close to the Test Subject. “What do you think I pay you for?”
Just then, a massive tentacle slithered out of the bag and the tip of it firmly latched itself onto the Test Subject’s forehead. It made a few sucking noises before it popped off and slithered its way back into the bag. The Test Subject’s head immediately fell onto the keyboard with a dull wet sound followed by the sound you get by hitting several keys at once. “Oh don’t tell me you’re going to sleep.” Dave said, still angrily. There was no response. A few seconds of silence later, Dave was a little bit calmer as he said “OK, you can sleep but when I come back I want to see some more right postcards!” Television Director immediately backed away but it was only to let Dave come out of the cubicle. He smiled again at the camera and then said “You’ve got to keep a firm grip on these people, you can never be too easy.”
PART FIVE: THE END
We then cut to the final title card with the stock music, both of which play for a few seconds, before we cut back to Dave in the charred out remains of his office. He’s sitting at what once was his desk, completely ashen and looking like it could break apart at any point. He sat upright in his equally burnt and almost destroyed chair and smiled once again, saying his last bit directly into the camera. “Well I hope you’ve enjoyed our tour of our little nation. I don’t think there’s much else to talk about-”
“What about the scoreboard, sir?” Television Director pointed out. “Or that plan to give a country a 25 points penalty because they kept spelling our country’s name wrong?”
Dave looked unimpressed for a couple of seconds before he instantly regained his smile. “Eh, we’ll worry about that later. For now, I’m done with my bit and I’m done with my video. I hope you all take our humble little bid into consideration.” At that point, Dave picked up his pipe, lit it and started to smoke again. After he exhaled, the camera zoomed out and we then get the stock music once again. We then immediately cut to the screen below, which plays for about a minute before both the screen and the stock music started to fade out, bringing the video to a complete end.
Note: ETV didn’t actually endorse or pay for this. We have no idea why they credited us for it.
A couple of seconds after the video ends, we then get another title screen. It was a black screen with some red Japanese characters on, with a subtitle underneath it in yellow reading “[GO FOR A PUNCH]”. There were also some Japanese mantras going on in the background audio. Fortunately, the representative from Malta Comino Gozo came in and paused the video; nobody wanted to see what will happen after that. After turning the TV off, the five representatives all looked at each other as if they were wondering whether or not they should seriously consider this bid. After all, it technically was a bid: it showed what their country was like, what the postcards will look like and what the venue will be, so there was probably a good reason for it. On the other hand, the whole thing was a bit unorthodox so at the same time they might not consider it. Only one way to find out, really!
EDIT: Whoops, not only forgot to confirm our confirmation as a puppet but also what our entry will be.
Nation Name: Placely Placington
Official Broadcaster: Wait, We Have A Broadcaster?
Song Title: Vote For Placely!
Artist(s) Name(s): Test and the Subjects
Tune: Dutch Idol - Simply The Best
Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:54 am
