Helping ET to go home
(with apologies to Steven Spielberg)
(Script to video – from Suburban Misfits)
SCENE ONE: captive
Visual: helicopter shots (aka Jurassic Park), harbor shots (aka Jaws),
SCENE TWO: liberation
Visual: green screen of Danny before fish tank), sound of breaking glass, house and pounding on door
Voice over: The trouble started with my landlord’s trip to Central America. Since I had moved into the Montclair rooming house to avoid trouble, trouble was the last thing I wanted or expected to find pounding on my door that early morning.
SCENE THREE: Waking into a nightmare
Visual: Kenny’s eyes popping open to pounding on the door, looking at clock, climbing out of bed and going to the door.
SCENE FOUR: Stranger at the door
Visual: alternating shots between Kenny and Danny on either side of the bedroom door.
KEN: Who is it?
DANNY: Danny, your neighbor.
KEN: What do you want?
DANNY: I need your help.
KEN: The landlord lives downstairs
DANNY: I can’t go to him. I need to talk to you.
KEN: (sighing as he opens the door) I know I’m going to regret this. Okay, you’ve woken me up, what’s the problem?
DANNY: I have ET in the basement and I need your help to get him home.
KEN: You’re high. Go away. (tries to close the door)
DANNY: I mean it.
KEN: For Christ’s sake, keep your voice down. This early in the morning people will think you’re being mugged and call the cops. The last thing I need is trouble with the cops.
DANNY: Then help me.
KEN: All right. I’ll help you. Let me get dressed.
SCENE FIVE: In the hall
Voice over: I knew when I moved in that the rooming house was haunted – not with ghosts, but with drug dealers, prostitutes and weirdoes, I just never figured I would wind up with the biggest weirdo of all. As it turned out, he wanted me to go down to the basement with him to meet ET.
SCENE SIX: The stairs
Visuals: on the stairs to the basement
KEN: What’s that dripping sound?
DANNY: That’s the landlord’s apartment
KEN: I thought you said the landlord went away
DANNY: He did.
KEN: Then shouldn’t someone do something if he place has sprung a leak?
DANNY: You said you didn’t want trouble with the police.
SCENE SEVEN: in the basement
Visuals: Ken and Danny around the sink
KEN: It’s a fish!
DANNY: It’s ET
KENNY: If the landlord finds out you have a pet, you’ll both be out of a home.
DANNY: We can never tell him. I took ET away from him. ET wants to go home.
KEN: You stole the landlord’s fish?
DANNY: He wanted to keep ET and ET wants to go home.
KEN: If the landlord comes home and finds the fish gone, he’s going to call the cops. I’m on probation. I’ll go to jail. You’ve got to put the fish back.
DANNY: I can’t put him back. I broke the tank when I got ET.
KEN: You mean to tell me you left the landlord’s apartment in a puddle of water?
DANNY: It was a big tank. Water was everywhere.
KEN: This is worse than I thought. I’m getting out of here.
SCENE EIGHT: Trapped
Visual: Ken and Danny on the stairs from the basement
Voice over: The great flood, however, had dribbled into other people’s lives and drawn their attention, rousing them even at this early hour. Their voices filled the hall between me and the safety of my room.
KEN: I can’t go up there now. Someone will see me and think I did all this. The judge will crucify me.
DANNY: ET go home.
KEN: Shut, will you, I’m trying to think.
DANNY: ET go home.
KEN: I told you to… no, maybe you’re right. We need to get rid of the evidence.
DANNY: ET go home?
KEN: We could probably get the fish out the side door through the kitchen while everybody is gawking at the Red Sea flowing from under the landlord’s door. You get the fish. I’ll get the car.
SCENE NINE: Getting the car
Visuals: getting the car scene images aka the van scene from War of the Worlds
VOICE OVER: As I snuck out of the house to get the car, I thought of how twisted life had become. When I was younger, I had hated the idea of being ordinary. Now when that’s all I wanted, I couldn’t get it.
SCENE TEN: ET in a bag
Visuals: Ken and Danny in basement
KEN: Where’s the fish?
DANNY: I put ET in the bag
KEN: It can live like that?
DANNY: For a while. But we have to hurry.
KEN: The sooner we’re rid of him, the happier I’ll be (Ken and Danny lift the bag out of the sink). Damn, this fish is heavy. What’s he been eating? Lead?
SCENE ELEVEN: stairs, kitchen and yard:
VISUALS: Climbing stairs to kitchen, then out the kitchen door to the car, placing Et in the car.
KEN: It’s Okay. Nobody’s here
DANNY: It’s okay?
KEN: Just be quiet?
DANNY: This way?
KEN: I have the car right out here.
SCENE TWELVE: (driving towards the river)
VISUALS: Ken and Danny in the car
VOICE OVER: As we drover towards the river, I felt as relieved as Danny, not so much because we had gotten away with it, but because for the first time in my life my life had a purpose – even if it was only to set a fish free.
DANNY: Hurry, Kenny
KEN: Calm down, I’m doing the speed limit. The last thing we need is to get pulled over by the police. Oh, no.
DANNY: What is it, Kenny?
KEN: (sees an accident ahead) It’s the police
DANNY: Do something, Kenny.
KEN: (speaking out the window) Good morning, officer
OFFICER: I’m afraid the road’s closed; you’ll have to go around. Nice day for fishing, though.
KEN: (driving off as instructed and speaking to Danny) Did you hear what he said? Nice day for fishing! Do you think he knows anything? Nobody knows the fish is missing yet. They can’t. So we’re just two guys headed for the shore. There’s nothing illegal about that. So try not to look, suspicious, all right?
DANNY: (seeing images from ET the movie frogs, ghosts and such – and a shark from Jaws): Kenny, ET is dying.
KEN: Okay, we’re almost there.
SCENE THIRTEEN: At the harbor
Visuals: boats, harbor, wooden walkway leading to a sanding pathway, and eventually a bridge near the water – as well as Danny near the water releasing the fish into a pool of fish, and eventually, Ken and Danny standing at a footbridge
KEN – (walking towards the bridge) Come we have a fish to ditch
DANNY: I’m coming (dumps the fish in the water and meets Ken at the footbridge)
KEN: So did you dump the fish?
DANNY: Yes.
KEN: And?
DANNY: I told him I loved him
KEN: Strange, but nice I suppose
DANNY: and I would miss him.
KEN: I won’t.
DANNY: He said he would come back
KEN: God, I hope not too soon.
SCENE FOURTEEN: Mother ship or something flies down on them to retrieve ET aka Close Encounters.