Standard disclaimers apply

(begin opening credits)

(sung)
- - -We hate Animes
- - -What's with these guys anyway?
- - -Tiny mouths and hubcap eyes
- - -Repair bills are on the rise
- - -Karl better soon get wise
- - -Before it's one of use who dies.

- - -Dr. Karl Stoopenstein
- - -Had a little to much wine
- - -Now we're stuck in space and time
- - -Tell us, just what was our crime?

- - -Now we're the
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -Nine to five we're curing ailments
- - -Of people purely fictional!

- - -Toni's got an attitude
- - -Let her bark, her bites hurt more
- - -Heather's got both her eyes glued
- - -On every single guy's barn door.
- - -Mike's a romantic
- - -Pam's a mystery
- - -Karl's always frantic
- - -Brain the size of a flea.

- - -Life's a little dangerous
- - -Doctors only raise a fuss
- - -Screaming out our final plea
- - -All we want's reality!

- - -Cause we're the
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -ANIME HOSPITAL!
- - -Nine to five we're curing ailments
- - -Of people purely fictional!

C       R       A       S       H       !       !
                                    
                                    
ANIME HOSPITAL
                                    
by J L Morreale
                                    
                                    
episode # 1
                                    
Going Gumballistic
                                    
                                    
Toni snuck another jelly doughnut out from the secret cache in her desk drawer
and took a bite from it. The day was half over and she was nervous. The day
had been too quiet compared to what she was used to. Usually by this time
there would have been at least three emergencies and one full-scale disaster
but so far the day had been relatively peaceful. The reception hall was clear
and  the worst case of the day had been a room full of stomachaches thanks to
C-Ko's cooking.
        
Suddenly the front door burst open and four women in hardsuits staggered their
way inside and toward the front desk. Toni glanced around desperately for a
place to hide her treasured pastry, but her desk was so cluttered with papers
and junk there was no space available to fit the doughnut. Desperately, she
stuffed it down her bra. She frantically redid top button of her blouse just
as the women finished limping their way over.
        
"Ah, the Knight Sabers," Toni said, doing her best to look casual. "Gee,
another visit? How surprising."
        
Sylia lifted her visor. Her hair was bedraggled and a thin trickle of blood
ran down the side of her face. "GENOM caught us by surprise," she gasped "Most
of us will be fine, but Priss is very hurt,"
        
"As usual," Toni said.
        
"Please, she needs help quickly."
        
Toni took a huge stack of papers of her computer's keyboard and negligently
dumped on the floor next to her. She called up the appointments of the day and
looked through it. She didn't need to. She already knew that there were plenty
of doctors available but they had ruined her day and almost caught her eating
at her desk so she decided to punish them a little. "I think we can fit you
in," she said after a while. "In fact, we can even take care of your other
appointments early, since you're here." She glanced up to see the ladies
removing their helmets. "Now let's see..." She fished through the papers on
her desk, found one, yanked it out, causing a large stack to crash to the
ground. She paid it no heed, adjusted her glasses a bit, and looked the paper
over. "Ah, yes. Nene has an appointment with the optometrist..."
        
Nene began to edge away from the counter. "Do I have to see the eye doctor?"
        
The others gave her an annoyed look. "YES!" they all said in unison. Linna
added, "We've been through this before. Your aim stinks, and we know that you
faked your police physical."
        
Nene continued to pout, but Toni broke in, "Linna, you have a gynecologists
appointment coming up, don't you?"
        
Linna's smirk disappeared, and her hands reached down to a shy posture while
her cheeks changed several shades.
        
"Yeah," Toni noted. She glanced one final time at the records and then said,
"You all have appointments with the Podiatrist?"
        
"Uh, yes, well, fighting boomers is rather hard on the feet," Sylia tried to
explain.
        
"It wouldn't be if you didn't do it in high heels," Toni said.

        

In the west wing of the hospital, Nurse Heather Farley was having a friendly
chat with one of the doctors and she was edging closer to him with each
passing minute. He did not seem to mind. They hardly noticed the young man who
had cybernetic body parts from the neck down followed by an earnest little
bear cub wearing a blue bow tie.
        
"The Ranger's not gonna like this, Yugo..." the bear cub was saying nervously.
They continued down the hall until they were out of sight.
        
"So, what are you doing Saturday?" Heather asked the doctor, but before he
could reply, she noticed a man in a flimsy hospital gown make his way
uncomfortably down the hall. "Who's that?" she said with undisguised interest.
        
"Him?" the doctor said, with just a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"That's Leon, of the Bubblegum
Universe. I think he's here for a few days because of injuries sustained in
the line of duty."
        
"He's gorgeous," Heather said. "And of course he'll need the loving care of a
devoted nurse." She lifted her hand to rub the doctor's chin, propping it up
with her index finger. "Sorry, darling, but work comes before pleasure," she
said, her voice dripping honey with every word. Turning away from him, she
adjusted her long red hair so that she could put on her nurse's cap and then
she licked her lips in anticipation. She started to follow Leon in much the
same way a wolf stalks her pray, but she was stopped by a brawny male nurse
whose uniform sported sergeant's stripes.
        
"Nurse Farley, where are you going?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be in the south
wing taking care of those stomachache patients?"
        
"Oh, Mike," Heather said with a mix of surprise, fear and irritation, her eyes
still following Leon down the hall.
        
"Nurse Jones," he corrected.
        
"Okay, Nurse Jones," she muttered. "Well, the south wing was all out of gauze
pads, so I thought I'd look here for some."
        
Mike reached into his medical bag and pulled out several pads. "Will this be
enough?"
        
Heather let a glimmer of annoyance cross her face. "Did I say gauze pads?" she
said faking an embarrassed smile. "What I meant is they were out of syringes."
He handed her a half-dozen. "Stethoscopes?" He gave her three. "Methanol?" He
gave her two jars. "IV life support stands!" she said triumphantly.
        
Her jaw nearly hit the ground when he pulled out one of those as well,
complete with fluid bags and tubing. "Cripes! Do you have Hoffa in there?"
        
"Well, let me just check..."
        
"Never mind! I'm going already..." Heather stormed off, wondering what would
have happened if she had actually let him check.

        
The orderly glanced nervously in both directions before he approached the
door. He checked the sheet of paper hung outside and smiled. "This is the
place," he whispered before quietly opening the door and creeping inside.
        
Inside, Priss had passed out on the hospital bed and was resting fitfully.
"Peaceful as a baby," the orderly snickered. He snuck up to the refrigerator
and pulled out a bottle from it. Quickly he unscrewed the lid and poured the
contents down the sink. Then he pulled another bottle from inside his uniform
and poured it into the first bottle.
        
"One shot of this stuff, and in twenty-four hours she'll go completely
berserk. The Knight Sabers are doomed!" he was muttering as he went about his
dirty work. He took some time off to chuckle villainously and then crept
quietly out of the room.
        
"What's so funny?" a voice asked curiously from behind the snickering orderly.
The wiry man squeaked and leaped into the air with surprise. When he turned
around, he had a nervous look on his face. He then had to look up, for Mike
was very tall as well.
        
"Eh? Funny? Um, well... you see," he faltered.
        
Mike looked at the orderly a bit more closely and said, "Say, there's
something funny about you. Where's you name tag? Who are you?"
        
"Ah, er... I'm..."
        
Just then there was a horrific scream, and from another room a nurse came
running wildly, screaming for all she was worth.
        
Mike's eyes rolled up into his head as he said, "Somebody must have forgotten
to warn Nurse Quan not to give Ranma a sponge bath." He ran off to chase her
down, but as he was halfway after her, he turned back to face the mysterious
orderly. "You stay right-" Mike started to say, but the order trailed off into
nothing.
        
The man was nowhere to be found.

        

When Priss awoke, she complained non-stop about her aches and pains. She put
up a good front in the battlefield, but once she was in a hospital and outside
the earshot of her comrades she became a first-class whiner. Nurse Pam Kaburi
silently endured the singer-warrior as she prepared her injection.
        
"Roll up your sleeve," Pam said, and Priss immediately shut up.
        
"Why?" she asked. Then she noticed the tiny cloth with rubbing alcohol on it.
"Nope, no way. I don't like needles," she said fearfully. "They hurt."
        
"So does this," Pam said, and she reached behind Priss' jaw and pressed her
finger against the pressure point between her ear and jaw.
        
"Ow!" Priss shouted. Pam released the pressure and folded her arms
expectantly. "All-right, already." She rolled up one of her sleeves and
gritted her teeth and Pam rubbed the alcohol on the appropriate area. She
winced and whined when the needle broke the skin and as Pam left the room to
take care of her next patient Priss was childishly sucking her thumb. She
removed the bandage on her arm and examined the wound.
        
The sound of an approaching nurse caused her to drop the bandage. She glanced
about for it, but it had somehow slipped out of sight. Fearing the nurse would
catch her, Priss quickly rolled her sleeve down to cover her arm.
        
Just then, Heather walked into the room, visibly annoyed at being thrown off
the trail of all the cute guys. She looked at the folder next to Priss' bed,
and went to the counter to prepare her shot.
        
Priss' eyes became wider. "Hey, wait, the other nurse-"
        
"Oh, be quiet, you," Heather snapped. Priss tried to move her arm away from
Heather's reach, until she got annoyed at her and said, "Fine, turn over,
we'll just go in the other way."
        
"The other...?" Priss said. "No! No way, you aren't sticking a needle in
there."
        
"Then hold still."
        
She started to roll up her sleeve, but Heather said, "The other arm, please. I
hate injecting a patient's good arm."
        
Priss whimpered a little, but allowed herself to be injected yet again with
the medicine. Heather began to clean up for the doctor when Dr. Karl von
Stoopenstein walked in. Heather's face visibly darkened but she tried to
conceal it with an smile. It wasn't working
        
"Oh, good," he said in his thick German accent. "I was hoping to get here
before the Doctor came in. I decided to do a little 'hands on' work today." He
looked Priss over, noting her wounds and the slightly glazed look in her eyes
that had suddenly appeared, and said, "My, my you are in bad shape aren't you,
my dear?"
        
"Uh-huh," Priss said.
        
"Heather, why don't you take care of some of the patients in the west-"
        
"Right away, sir!" Heather said as she flew out of the room shouting "Yippee!"
        
"Well, then, let's see, what do we have here?" Karl said as he looked over
Priss' file. "Aw, you've been seriously hurt I see. Emergency care complete.
Yes, yes..." He flipped to the next page and said "Ah! I see that you are
getting much better. Amazing, how quickly you can recover, isn't it? Simply
amazing. But you still need our care. A doctor will be over to see to you in a
moment but first you need a little shot. I can do that. Yes, that will be very
nice. Now, then, young lady, please roll up your sleeve."
        
"Awwww," Priss said, as she sat up and swerved a little on the bed. "But I
don't wanna."
        
"I'll give you a candy, if you're a good girl," the ratty haired man said over
his shoulder as he prepared the shot. With practiced ease, he filled the
syringe with double the prescribed dosage and then turned to his protesting
patient. His smile was warm and fatherly.
        
Priss stuck her lower lip out in a pouty expression, but she rolled up her
sleeve and allowed herself to receive the shot yet again. "There's a good
girl," Karl said. "Don't you worry now. Those wounds have all been cleaned and
dressed, well, except for that tiny hole in your arm, but was so close to
where I injected you that I was able to cover it with the very same bandage,
so you just relax and you'll get all better in no time. Well, I'll just be
going on to the next patient then." And with that, he walked out of the room,
humming a little song to himself.
        
Priss looked at her wounded arm, examined the twin bandage on her other arm,
and whimpered a little more. She rocked back and forth a little, mumbling
unintelligibly. Suddenly she said, "Wait, I want my candy," and got off the
bed and left the room in search of the doctor.

* * * Commercial Break * * *

                                    
[A skull and crossbones fills the shot and then fades away to several grade
school kids chatting before class. A pseudo military beat plays in the
background.]

School Kid 1: They've banned hats, bandannas, jackets, everything! And we're
stuck in these lame uniforms.

School Kid 2: Yeah. There isn't anything exciting left to wear.

[Cut to a pair of feet approaching the unwary students. The students all
suddenly look up and gape in astonishment.]

School Kid 3: Hey guys!

[The camera slow pans up the feet until it nearly reaches the boy's face.]

School Kids 1 and 2: Whoa, cool!

[The teacher glances up from her desk and begins to tremble in fear. A couple
of nearby girls swoon.]

Girl 1: He looks so dreamy.

Girl 2: I love it! He looks just like-

Children: Captain Harlock!

[Camera shows the boy's full face now, sporting a stylized eyepatch over his
right eye.]

Announcer: Captain Harlock Eyepatches. Now you can be the hero.

[The skull and crossbones fills the screen again, and fades to black.]


* * * End Commercial Break * * *

Leon was hungry, and while he was glad to be out of confinement to his bed, he
wished that he could still have food delivered to his room. He still hadn't
found the cafeteria, and he hated walking around the hospital in the gowns
they gave out. Not that he really minded the attention, it was just that he
would have preferred feminine awe over general amusement. Besides, the
hospital was so immense he had long since given up hope of finding the right
way and simply rode the automated treadway that occupied the center of each
wing of the hospital. He considered taking the sub-level express car, but he
knew that it would be too crowded for his comfort. What kind of idiot creates
a hospital with five-mile long central hallways?
        
Finally he had found some signs indicating the direction of the cafeteria and
his stomach expressed its approval as he headed that way.
        
Suddenly, a husky voice from behind him said, "Well hel-lo there Leon."
        
He spun around to see Priss leaning against the corridor wall, her hands
lifting her hair seductively above her head. "Oh, my, don't you look tasty in
that outfit," she said.
        
"P- Priss?" Leon said carefully. "Are you feeling well?"
        
"I feel fine," Priss said as she did a little pirouette, finishing it by
falling so that her hands wrapped themselves around his shoulders. "But I know
how you can make me feel much better,"
        
Leon's hair was standing on its ends. "Priss, you're starting to scare me.
But-"
        
"But what?"
        
"But I like it," he admitted.
        
"Oh, good," she said. "Follow me." She broke away from him and Leon, hunger
forgotten, obediently tagged along as she led him down the halls.
        
Moments later he staggered out of a doorway, clenching his jaw in one hand and
a more sensitive area in the other while he moaned in pain. "What happened?"
he managed to mumble just before he passed out.
        
Priss came out of the door, scowling. She took one look at Leon and said, "You
pig!" before she took off down the hall in the opposite direction. "Oh! I
can't believe his nerve!"

        

Pam ran out of Priss' room looking very worried. "Dr. Stoopenstein! We have a
patient on the loose!"

As she ran by a corner, Priss poked her head out, looked both ways, breathed a
sigh of relief and stepped out into the open. She danced over to her room as a
child might, chanting, "I'm going to stop the boo-bers, I'm going to stop the
boo-bers!" along the way. She giggled at her own joke and disappeared into
the room. Soon she was in her hardsuit and snuck down the hall, turning a
corner just as Pam, Karl, Heather, and Mike showed up to look inside.
        
"You're right, she is missing," Karl noted when they looked inside. Heather
got ready to smack him upside the head, but Mike stopped her in mid-swing. Pam
looked around.
        
"She's been back," she said. "Her hardsuit's gone."
        
"Oh, that's just great," Heather said. "What the heck does she think she's up
to, anyway?" 
        
"We should notify security, and hope that they find her," Mike put in.
        
Everybody except Karl looked at each other for a heartbeat or two, and then
all together they said, "Bad idea."
        
Meanwhile, the orderly snuck into a broom closet, and pulled out a small
communications device from his coat. "This is agent 31674, calling
headquarters."
        
A face flickered onto the viewscreen. It was an old man with graying hair and
thick eyebrows. "Did you make the switch?" the man asked.
        
"Of course I did. How stupid do you think I am?"
        
"Did you hide the evidence?"
        
"Evidence?"
        
"The original bottle."
        
"Uh-oh."
        
Back in the room, everyone was looking around, wondering where Priss had gone,
why she had left and what they should do about it. Suddenly Pam noticed a
bottle lying next to the sink. She picked it up, read the label, and put it
back down. She went to the refrigerator, pulled out the other bottle, poured a
little bit out into the sink, and set it down as well. She picked up the first
bottle, and walked over to the group.
        
"I believe this may answer some of our questions," she told them.
        
They looked at the bottle. "How did that get in here?" Mike said. "You don't
think she drank some, do you?"
        
"No," Pam said. "I believe I injected her with it."
        
"What!?" everyone else said in unison. "Why would you do a stupid thing like
that?" Heather added.
        
"Because I think someone put its contents into this bottle," Pam said, and she
showed them the regular medicine.
        
"Why did you give her a shot? I already gave her one fifteen minutes ago."
        
"I gave it to her eighteen minutes ago."
        
"Oh, well, how come I didn't see a bandage?"
        
"Because she must have taken it off," Mike said, as he picked it off the
ground and showed it to them.
        
"That means she was injected with this stuff twice?" Heather said.
        
"Maybe three times," Karl said then. They all gave him a blank stare. "I was
only trying to help."
        
"I'll kill him," Heather said, and she reached out her hands to strangle the
frazzled administrator.
        
"No you don't!" Mike said in alarm, and he grabbed one arm while Pam took hold
of the other one and they struggled to keep the murderous nurse away from the
administrator. Normally Mike would be strong enough to restrain Heather on his
own but the buxom nurse could be very difficult when seriously angered.
        
"Oh, what will we do? This is a very big problem. There's no telling what
she's capable of in the condition she's in," Karl said as he fitfully paced
the room.
        
"We get her pals and we hunt her down, that's what." Heather said. "Now let me
at him!"

        

Toni waited patiently while a fresh stream of animes came in, sat at the
waiting room, filled out forms and went to see their doctors. Finally the room
cleared enough to give her a chance to reach into her bra to draw out the
jelly doughnut she'd been hiding.
        
Just then the front doors burst open as Priss came riding through on her
Motoslave, yelling, "Take that, GENOM!" and roaring down the east wing halls,
scattering nurses and orderlies like litter. Toni's arms flew to her chest in
shock, smearing the doughnut flat inside her gown. Jelly oozed out, and all
Toni could do was whimper her loss.
        
"Wheeeeeee!!!" Priss could be heard to say as she faded out of sight.
        
Toni gingerly removed the doughnut and began to wipe the jelly away with some
tissue paper. "Heaven help her the next time she comes in," she mumbled.
        
Meanwhile the other Knight Sabers had been assembled by Mike, Pam and Heather
and the situation had been explained to them. The three women had gotten into
their hardsuits and everyone seemed ready for the worst. "Now all we need to
do is locate her," Heather said.
        
Just then, a loud scream was heard further down the hall, followed by the
sound of a motorcycle passing. Moments later, Leon staggered up to them. A
track of tire prints ran from his pants to his face, and as he approached them
he managed to say, "Nurse, I'd like to talk about extending my visit..." just
before he passed out again.
        
Sylia, Nene and Linna looked at each other, nodded their heads in
confirmation. "Knight Sabers, go!" Sylia said, and they all ran off in the
direction Leon just came from. As soon as they got to the "T" intersection at
the end of the hall, they all jumped in surprise, and began to run back
towards the assembled nurses, a rain of gunfire closely behind them. Priss
appeared, with her motorcycle shifted into battle armor form, firing her gun
in random directions. Behind her was a trail of wreaked rails and treadway.
        
Mike and Heather both gaped in disbelief and then joined the Knight Sabers in
fleeing the scene. Pam remained calm and stood her ground as Priss quickly
approached her. Just before she was run down by the approaching mecha, the
slim nurse leapt into the air, twisting just so and landing in such a way that
she
straddled the top of the rampaging armor.
        
The gunfire had stopped, and the armor suit was swerving dangerously. Pam
checked, and saw that Priss had fallen asleep, but was still causing the
vehicle to fly. Using her own body leverage, Pam did her best to steer the
armor away from anyone in the halls.
        
The others had apparently not noticed that the gunfire had ceased, and
continued to run, even though Pam had even steered the mecha down another
hallway. They came down to where Priss was originally being held, and saw the
mysterious orderly sneaking out with the bottle he had left behind. He turned
around just in time to see the five fleeing individuals run him down, tripping
over themselves in the process and winding up as a big heap in the center of
the hall.
        
When they all got back to their feet, Mike noticed the orderly and said, "Hey,
I remember you!"
        
"And look at what he has," Heather added as she took to bottle from him. "I
think you have some questions to answer, pal. Starting with what you're doing
with this." She held the bottle up in front of him.
        
Mike suddenly said, "Wait, look at his face." They all did so, and saw that
there was a rather odd and disturbingly artificial looking fold over the left
cheek. Mike walked up to him, grabbed the face, and yanked. The face stretched
out like loose rubber, and then came free, revealing...
        
"You're an Anime!" Heather and Mike said in unison.
        
"I'm more than that," the orderly said, and suddenly all his skin burst forth
to reveal a significantly larger body of steel underneath. "I'm GENOM's top
line prototype, the ultra-super deluxe boomer! The Knight Sabers don't stand a
chance!" With that, he chuckled. Then he laughed, long and hard, as if he had
nothing better to do at the moment.
        
"Look out!" everyone heard Pam say, and when they glanced down the hall, they
saw her astride Priss' armor and bearing down on them. Everyone leapt out of
the way just in time to avoid it, but the boomer was still laughing
maniacally. He was caught completely by surprise and was carried with the
flying mecha to the end of the hall, where Pam jumped off just before is
slammed into the reinforced walls, effectively flattening the ultra-super
deluxe boomer.

        

Much later, when all the confusion had been settled, everyone was in the
reception hall talking with Toni about the events. "Oh, so that's what
happened," Toni said. "Gee, that's a shame," she added almost regretfully.
        
"Why?" Mike asked.
        
Just then a bloodcurdling scream was heard from down the hall, causing
everyone except Toni to cringe apprehensively.
        
"What did you do to her?!" Mike demanded.
        
"Oh, nothing, really. I just changed the music feed to her room and raised the
volume a little."
        
"Changed the music to what?"
        
"Every song Vision's ever recorded."


Preview of next week's episode.
--------------------------------------
                                    
Lum is sick! Nobody knows what's ailing her, but she's steadily getting more
and more unstable! Ataru is chasing all the nurses and female patients and
getting mangled in the  process! Good thing he's in a hospital! Join the
craziness as the cast of Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and Maison Ikkoku guest
star in: Ill-Lum-innate-shuns!


(begin closing credits, to tune of Hey! Macarena!)

The four of us are ladies and we're wearing lots of armor
Sylia's the leader and there's Linna she's the charmer
Here's Makie, girl crazy
Peeps when we dress he's so ecchi

(chorus)
Boomers try to kill 'em read about it in the paper 
Cops say they're the bad guys but they're more like friendly neighbors
We need heroes they're the best
Fighting off the danger
Hey! Naito Seibas!

Now don't you worry bout the boomers
The ones made at the place known as GENOM
We defy, and fry them
With the latest technology-hehehehehe...
("Well, what else are we supposed to do. They ruined our lives, and revenge is
SO sublime.")

chorus

We look way cooler than MOSPEADA
Priss' tunes couldn't make us any sweeter
Mercenary
We're scary
But if we could we'd do it for free

chorus

chorus


============

This was inspired many years ago by a breif moment when I wondered what an
American sitcom focused around anime would be like. After a long hiatus (okay,
I got married) I managed to go back and do some revising. C & C would be
vastly appreciated. Thanks, all

Joseph Morreale
JLMorreale@aol.com