WAM in the West Chapter Six: The History of Slapstick

Taylor walked out onto the stage and took her place behind the lectern. She was obviously dressed for her presentation, wearing a black dress with long sleeves and an open collar. Her sleeves were rolled up to three quarter length, and the dress went down to her knees. "Thank you all for coming tonight, and welcome to our presentation on the history of slapstick. Tonight's presentation is based on the Monty Python sketch that some of you may have seen, but we've taken the liberty of updating some of the content for the 2000s. For example, the original sketch began with participants being hit with a long piece of wood. We believe that slapstick should be funny and fun, not funny and painful, so we're beginning with seltzer bottles instead. Please welcome Annie, Kenzie, Riley, and Lindsay to the stage."

The audience applauded politely as the four girls marched single file onto the stage, all wearing jeans and different styles of Arizona State shirts and carrying big seltzer bottles.

"Getting sprayed with seltzer dates back to the silent movie era," Taylor informed her audience. "But there was never an abundance of technique involved. The first attack was usually unexpected and from the side."

Annie and Lindsay, standing in the two outer positions of the line of four girls, remained facing the audience while Kenzie and Riley turned back to back and let loose with a blast of seltzer water to the sides of their target's heads. Although Annie and Lindsay had been expecting the soaking, the cold temperature and the volume of the water that was sprayed at them surprised both girls. Lindsay let out a little shriek as the cold water ran down into her ASU logoed maroon tank top, but Annie held onto her stage face and endured the soaking of her brown hair and gold t-shirt without showing emotion, just like they'd practiced. The crowd let out a surprised laugh.

"However, there were a couple of simple variations," Taylor continued, "the first of which is best represented by this little rhyme: 'A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down the pants.'"

This time it was Kenzie and Riley's turn to stand still as the other two girls turned inward to face them. Neither girl kept her composure perfectly as Annie and Lindsay let loose with the seltzer. Annie's aim was perfect as she sprayed Riley's crotch from about a foot away, the cold water instantly soaking into the front of her jeans. Lindsay took a different approach and actually inserted the nozzle of her seltzer bottle into the waistband of Kenzie's jeans before starting the spray. Kenzie squirmed as the water ran down her legs, and actually let out a little yelp as her jeans were soaked from the inside out.

The crowd laughed even harder than before as the fronts of Kenzie and Riley's jeans darkened. They didn't know it, but both girl's jeans had specifically been chosen because they best showed the wetness as it spread down their legs. Well, that and the fact that the jeans were tight and sexy. But in all fairness, each of the four girls wore jeans that were awfully tight and extremely sexy. Kenzie seemed to be having a particularly tough time keeping her composure, and she let out a funny little gasp which turned into a series of snorts and coughs. She handed her seltzer bottle to Annie and covered her mouth while she tried to get back under control.

Taylor had continued on despite the coughing and laughter from the audience. "The final seltzer spraying technique is nothing more complicated than everyone ganging up on one unarmed target."

Kenzie stopped coughing just as Taylor finished speaking and looked around as the other three girls surrounded her. She looked at her empty hands as if just then realizing that she was no longer carrying a seltzer bottle, then gazed straight out at the crowd and just had time to say, "Uh oh," before the other girls aimed and squeezed their triggers. They sent streams of cold water at Kenzie, quickly soaking her from head to toe. Her jersey style t-shirt of gray with maroon sleeves darkened to almost black as it was soaked by the seltzer water. The girls continued their assault until their water bottles ran dry, by which time Kenzie's hair and clothes were completely drenched, even though she held up her hands, futilely trying to block the torrents of water coming at her from three directions. Annie, who was wielding two bottles, seemed to take great pleasure in soaking both Kenzie's upper and lower halves, even though her jeans were already getting awfully wet from the water cascading down her body. It took the crowd considerably longer to stop laughing than it took the water bottles to run dry, but once they quieted down Kenzie gave a defeated shrug and spat out a stream of water and they laughed again.

Taylor was doing a great job of keeping a straight face as she continued, "The silent film era gave way to talkies, and that brought us The Three Stooges along with Laurel and Hardy. This was the golden age of what would come to be the ultimate in slapstick humor, the pie in the face."

While Taylor had been talking, Annie and Lindsay had marched off the stage taking the seltzer bottles with them, and they quickly reemerged, each carrying a tray containing two pies. They presented the trays to Kenzie and Riley, who picked up a pie with each hand before the other two girls took a few steps to the side.

Taylor was continuing, "The pie in the face began simply enough with the direct forward deposit." Kenzie and Riley turned to face each other, paused for just a couple of seconds, and Riley wound up and planted one of her pies directly into Kenzie's face. The crowd let out a surprised laugh. The pies were all fairly runny by this point, having been sitting out while the stage was set and the beginning of the performance had been taking place. This, coupled with Kenzie already being drenched from the previous segment, combined to make the coconut cream pie, which had plenty of whipped cream on top, extra runny. Not only did it completely cover Kenzie's face, but runny cream and filling also ran down her neck and over her soaked clothes, leaving white streaks behind as gravity did its work. The girls took a quick bow and returned to their original positions, facing the crowd side by side. The bow had let some of the pie fall from Kenzie's face, but with a pie in each hand all she could do was shake her head back and forth trying to dislodge a little more cream and filling.

"This quickly evolved," Taylor was saying, "into the surprise forward deposit."

The girls again faced each other and as Kenzie raised one of her pies to take her revenge, Riley quickly smacked her in the face with her remaining pie before Kenzie could complete her wind up. The crowd laughed harder than before, as Kenzie tried to wipe some glop out of her eyes. She was having a hard time since she held a pie in each hand so Riley helpfully held one of Kenzie's pies as she wiped pie and crust from her face. As before, the girls took their original positions and bowed, Kenzie seemingly not noticing that Riley now had one of her pies.

"The first major innovation in pie throwing was known as the sideways surprise pie," Taylor said next.

Instead of turning to face each other again, Riley quickly reached out and plopped her newly acquired pie onto the side of Kenzie's head. "Really?" Kenzie asked, pretending to be upset, but inwardly struggling not to laugh. All of her face and most of her hair were now covered with pie, not to mention all of the creamy goo dripping down her wet clothes.

"And closely following that was the self-pie," Taylor said. Kenzie looked over at her and shook her head back and forth. Taylor shook her own head up and down in return.

"But " Kenzie started to say.

"The self-pie," Taylor repeated firmly.

Kenzie exhaled in resignation and slammed the last pie up into her own face and pushed it back to rest on the top of her head, much to the delight of the crowd. While Kenzie tried to wipe some of the mess from her face, slicking a good amount of mess back through her hair in the process, the other three girls marched off the stage, returning with two pies each. Kenzie remained empty-handed as Annie and Lindsay took up their positions on either side of her with Riley standing off to one side. Kenzie looked around in frustration as she was again the only performer left without ammunition.

Taylor was again speaking, "What we call the Silver Age of pie throwing began in the 1950s with televisions finally in most households.

Kenzie remained looking straight out into the audience as Lindsay and Annie turned to face her from both sides. The two girls struck in unison, but just as they did, Kenzie ducked and they wound up smashing their pies into each other's faces, leaving Kenzie unscathed. Kenzie slowly straightened up, looking both ways. Upon seeing that someone else had finally been on the receiving end of a pie, she raised a fist in the air and shouted "hah!" and proceeded to do a quick happy dance.

Riley then stepped forward and handed Lindsay and Annie each another pie, still leaving Kenzie weaponless. "But even these techniques were soon improved upon," Taylor said.

Annie and Lindsay again faced Kenzie, and again she ducked out of the way as they struck, resulting in Annie and Lindsay pieing each other again. This time, however, when Kenzie ducked she planted her own face right into Annie's second pie, which Annie had extended in front of her and directly in the path of Kenzie's ducking head. Lindsay then brought her own second pie down onto the back of Kenzie's head which was still resting in the pie held in Annie's outstretched hand, effectively giving Kenzie a front and back pie sandwich. To add insult to injury, when Kenzie lifted her head out of the pie and stood up straight once again, Annie took the remains of the pie she still held and deposited it right on top of Kenzie's head. The audience went crazy as Annie and Lindsay quickly wiped pie away from their faces, but Kenzie was plastered all over again, made worse by the fact that under all the pies she was still very wet from the previous segment.

Riley, Annie, and Lindsay again marched off-stage, almost immediately returning with Riley carrying a plastic children's swimming pool and the other two girls each carrying a five gallon bucket. Kenzie remained on stage and had been making quite a show out of wiping pie from her clothes and trying to fix her goopy hair and was working on getting her eyes clean while all this had been going on. She still had her hands covering her face as Riley set the empty kiddie pool down and gently maneuvered her into standing in the center of it. Kenzie finally got her eyes cleared and looked around. When she saw that she was standing in the little pool she muttered, "Oh, this can't be good."

Taylor continued, "The seventies brought Tiswas to British television, along with The Bucket of Water Song, which made it all the way to number twenty-six on the British Charts." The auditorium's speakers had come to life during Taylor's recitation, timed perfectly so that the lyrics started shortly after she finished speaking. The first couple of lines went by, and just as the recording played "We sing out strong, the bucket of water song," Annie began pouring her bucket of cold water over Kenzie's head.

Annie took her time, and the water washed away a fair amount of the pie mess still covering Kenzie but left her completely soaked again. Unfortunately, the cream and pie filling running out of Kenzie's hair and clothes also made the pool super slippery as it collected around her feet. Even though she was wearing her converse sneakers, Kenzie still slipped and landed on her butt in the pool as Annie dumped the last of the water over her friend's head. Riley rushed forward to make sure that Kenzie was alright, but tripped on the edge of the kiddie pool, somehow managing to land right in Kenzie's lap. Both girls started looked shocked, all thoughts of the presentation they'd practiced forgotten with this new and unplanned turn of events. They were still laughing, obviously unhurt by falling when the song, still playing on the speakers came around to the chorus again as if they'd planned the whole thing. Just then they heard "bucket of water song" lyrics play again, and Lindsay upended her bucket right over Riley's head, soaking both girls with the five gallons of cold water from her full bucket. Riley and Kenzie sputtered and squirmed and wound up laughing even harder. The crowd was in stiches.

Taylor was the first to recover, and loudly cleared her throat. The other four girls did their best to return to the stoic characters that they were supposed to be playing, but only succeeded to varying degrees. Lindsay and Annie then made yet another exit from the stage. Of course, they returned immediately, carrying two more identical looking buckets. The audience didn't know it, but Riley was never supposed to have ended up in the kiddie pool with Kenzie, but now that she was there and soaked - she had no plans on leaving. Her white ASU t-shirt had gone a bit transparent when she was watered down, which was not part of the original plan. Riley was glad that Taylor had insisted that she wear a bra today, or she might have been giving away more than she was comfortable with. She knew what was coming next and was confident that her shirt wouldn't be see through for long. What she didn't know was whether she should stay in Kenzie's lap, or sit next to her, or what. The problem was solved when Annie handed them the now empty water buckets, which they turned upside down and used as impromptu side by side stools.

The music had stopped earlier when Taylor cleared her throat, bringing the presentation back under control. Now that everything was back in place she continued, "The Eighties brought Nickelodeon to US households, along with a Canadian import called You Can't Do That on Television."

"Excuse me," Riley called out, "but I've never heard of that before." This was completely adlibbed, but Taylor picked up on Riley's plan immediately.

Taylor turned from her lectern to address Riley directly, "How can you never have heard of You Can't Do That on Television?"

"Well, you don't have to make me sound stupid," Riley shot back. "It's just that I don't know what it is."

As soon as Riley uttered "I don't know", Lindsay, who had also figured out where the exchange was going slowly upended her bucket, covering the already soaked Riley with thick and chunky green slime. It was obvious that Lindsay had done this before, or at least had put quite a bit of thought into it. She started out pouring the slime right onto Riley's head, who paused for a second to let it cover her dark brown hair before tilting her head back and looking straight up into the green deluge as if she were Donald Trump during an eclipse. Lindsay moved the stream around, both side to side as well as forward and back. She covered Riley's short sleeves as well as pouring plenty over the front of her shirt and onto her twice soaked jeans.

"What the hell!?" Riley exclaimed, still pretending to not know anything about YCDTOTV.

Kenzie was laughing, both with humor, and from relief at seeing someone else on the receiving end of the latest mess. "That shirt is never going to be white again!" she exclaimed, pointing at her friend's chest before laughing some more.

Riley looked down and pulled the soaked and slimy shirt away from her body with a sucking sound, "Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to get this clean"

Right on cue, Annie came forward and emptied her bucket of slime over Riley, covering her with a second coating of green slime. Riley had still been holding her shirt away from her body when the sliming began and remained frozen in place by the surprise of the slime once again raining down upon her. The slime flowed freely into Riley's shirt until she finally let go of it and raised her hands over her head to intercept the glop coming down. Of course, this didn't work and she was only successful in getting her hands and arms covered as well as the rest of her body.

The audience had laughed at Riley's first gunging, but absolutely lost it when she was slimed for the second time. Taylor had to hesitate and wait for the crowd to settle down before continuing. Annie and Lindsay took the opportunity to leave the stage once again and return, both holding a pie in each hand. Riley remained sitting on her upside down bucket in the kiddie pool, but Kenzie took up her station, standing between the other two. She had escaped the sliming, but despite being drenched she still had the remains of countless pies clinging to her face, hair, and clothes as well as being soaked. Riley, sitting to the side, was still completely covered in slime, although she'd wiped some away from her eyes and mouth. Annie and Lindsay, although escaping the worst of the mess, had each been sprayed with water and pied twice.

Taylor looked over at the four girls and smiled. "For our final demonstration of the evening we're going to return to the original Monty Python sketch. Ladies and gentlemen, the Modified Foul Pie."

Annie reached behind Kenzie and smacked a pie onto her butt with enough force that the crowd saw bits of pie fly and splatter even though the actual contact was made to the rear and they couldn't see it. The crowd laughed.

"And the Original Foul Pie."

Annie reached over deposited her final pie smack into Kenzie's crotch. The crowd gasped and roared. Kenzie made a show of slowly pulling the pie tin away from the front of her jeans, leaving the cream and filling covering her bikini area.

"Finally, since we ladies have more to work with that the men that originally performed this material, we present the Female Foul."

Kenzie and Lindsay turned to face each other and waited just an extra second as the crowd started to laugh before anything happened. At the perfect time, Lindsay reached out with both of her pies and simultaneously plopped them right onto Kenzie's boobs. To Lindsay's credit, she didn't laugh out loud, but she was smiling and shaking as she held it in. She gave each pie a couple of twists before pulling the pie tins away from Kenzie's chest.

Annie and Lindsay quickly marched off the stage as Kenzie and Riley stood in their usual row, facing the audience and dripping pies and slime.

Taylor continued her recitation, "But finally we must not forget the enjoyment"

Annie and Lindsay reappeared on stage, each holding two more pies. Instead of returning to their original positions with the other girls, they passed well behind Kenzie and Riley walking on exaggerated tiptoes.

"the satisfaction" Taylor continued as the girls kept tiptoeing, passing the others, obviously sneaking up behind Taylor, who was the only one on stage still completely clean.

"and the edification to be derived" They were right behind Taylor now.

"from the simple straightforward" They raised their pies ready to strike as Taylor finished. "sideways completely unexpected deposit."

And Taylor spun around holding two pies that had been hidden beneath her lectern and smacked them into Annie and Lindsay's chests.

While the crowd roared, the two would-be pie ninjas acting sad from being outsmarted - returned to stand in line with Kenzie and Riley, each handing over one of their pies to the others so that all four girls were holding a single pie. They were a sight! Riley was still covered head to toe in slime. It dripped from her hair onto her shirt, which indeed would never be white again. Both Annie and Lindsay had taken identical messes, getting their cute hair styles destroyed with gushing water at the very start of the show, they both had the remains of several pies stuck to their faces and in their hair along with the pies that Taylor had just deposited onto their chests. Kenzie, whose clothes still glistened from being dowsed repeatedly, had played the main stooge of the presentation, and had pie remains in her hair and sported what looked like a slowly dripping pie bikini. The audience couldn't stop laughing and applauding.

Taylor said, "Thank you all so much! Thank you. Goodnight." The house lights went dark and the crowd rose to its feet giving the girls a standing ovation. After a moment the lights came back up and Taylor called out, "Thank you so much! Thank you again. I'd like to thank Monty python, who we so blatantly stole from." The crown applauded politely. "Also, a big shout out to The Beckery, and my boss Becky who graciously supplied tonight's ammunition. Please stop by sometime, we're the best bakery in the valley." Another round of applause from the crowd ensued. "And of course, all my gratitude goes out to an incredible group of friends - I still can't believe they volunteered to do this - Riley, Kenzie, Annie, and Lindsay!"

The crowd rose to their feet again as the girls took a bow, and the applause was overwhelming. Just as things started to quiet down, the four girls nodded to each other and simultaneously raised their final pies into their own faces, triggering a final round of laughter and applause.