Paste Makes Waste

(Opening shot: the city skyline, seen from a distance.)

Narrator: The city of Townsville!

(Pull back to bring the subdivision into view.)

Narrator: Pokey Oaks County! A sleepy suburb of the city of Townsville.

(Pull back again to bring Pokey Oaks Kindergarten into view.)

Narrator: Pokey Oaks Kindergarten! A school in Pokey Oaks County, a sleepy suburb of the city of Townsville.

(Zoom in and dissolve quickly to Ms. Keane in the classroom.)

Narrator: Ms. Keane! The teacher of Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, a school in the sleepy suburbs of— (She glares at the camera.) I’m—oh, I’m sorry.

Ms. Keane: Okay, kids. Now continue working on your projects, and I will take roll call.

(On the end of this, we hear the sound of paint or glue being applied liberally. Cut to the head of a long table; the kids are working with Popsicle sticks and paste. Ms. Keane is seen from the shoulders down.)

Ms. Keane: Julie? Julie Bean?

Orange-haired girl (Julie): Here.

Ms. Keane: Harry? Harry Pitt?

Dirty, homely boy (Harry): Here. (Pan slowly along the table.)

Ms. Keane: Wes? Wes Goingon?

Blond boy (Wes): Yeah?

Ms. Keane: (now o.c.) Bubbles?

Bubbles: Here.

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Blossom?

Blossom: Present.

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Buttercup?

Buttercup: Yep. (Camera stops; the other end of the table is just out of view. Two of the boys are identical twins.)

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Lloyd Floyjoydson?

Twin 1 (Lloyd): Huh?

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Floyd Floyjoydson?

Twin 2 (Floyd): What?

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Mitchell?…Mitchell Mitchellson?

Brown-haired boy (Mitchell): It's Mitch! And yeah, I'm here, okay?

(Mitchell, or Mitch, sounds very much like a troublemaker. Buttercup smiles and giggles at his outburst.)

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Elmer? Elmer Sglue?

(A squishing sound causes all the kids' eyes to pop open. The camera pans quickly to the end of the table and zooms in on a jar of paste in the hands of the kid sitting there. Pull back slightly; he digs out a handful and packs it into his mouth. He wears thick glasses and a smear of paste around his lips. When he speaks, his voice is very timid.)

Paste-eating kid (Elmer): Here.

(His response is accompanied by a burp and spray of mixed paste and spit.)

Mitch: (disgustedly) Ohhhh! (pushing Elmer to the floor) Paste eater!

(Most of the class laughs at this. In a head-on view from Elmer’s end of the table, we now see that Mitch wears a black T-shirt with the words “MITCH ROCKS” on the front. He also sounds quite a bit like Popeye when he laughs. Blossom and Bubbles are stunned into silence, but Buttercup is enjoying the moment. Ms. Keane, meanwhile, is shocked at this behavior.)

Ms. Keane: Elmer!…Mitchell!

(Back to him, panning up the table, as she continues. Buttercup laughs, but Blossom and Bubbles glare angrily at her, not happy with her behavior over Elmer's mistreatment. Stop on these two.)

''' Ms. Keane:' (from o.c.'') Mitchell Mitchellson, that was a terrible thing to do! (At Elmer’s end, she kneels over him.) Elmer—are you okay?

(He still has the jar in his hand. When he opens his mouth, the first thing to come out of it is a large white bubble.)

 Elmer: Yes, Mrs. Keane [sic].

Kids: Ewww! (Ms. Keane sets Elmer upright as they laugh.)

Ms. Keane: Okay, now, children, behave— (The laughter stops.) —especially you, Mitchell. (She walks o.c.)

(Mitch looks down at a rough figure of a person in front of him. It has a large glob of paste on one corner. He picks this up.)

Mitch: "Ooooh! My name's Elmer!" (scraping up paste from the table, sticking it on) "And I like to eat gooey paste! 'Cause I'm stupid!"

(He sticks the creation squarely onto Elmer’s forehead.)

Mitch: D'oh! (The kids laugh again; Elmer is mortified.)

Ms. Keane: Children! (Close-up of the twins.)

Lloyd, Floyd: (pointing o.c., sing-song voices) You eat paste! You eat paste! What a doof! (They trade high-fives.)

(Blossom and Bubbles take no part in the ridicule, but Buttercup is enjoying the whole thing.)

Ms. Keane: Now that is just about enough!

Harry: You’re gross! (Buttercup looks eagerly toward him.)

Julie: Yeah, you look like a dummy! (Buttercup looks to her.)

Wes: (picking nose) Ha-ha! What a sick habit, man!

(Extreme close-up of Buttercup, zooming in on each successive insult.)

Mitch: (from o.c.) Glue-ber!

Floyd: (from o.c.) Paste-head!

Lloyd: (from o.c.) Tacky!

(She finally decides to really drive home the point herself. She scoops a wad of paste off the table and stands over Elmer.)

Buttercup: EAT THIS, PASTE EATER!

(She lets the paste fly, and the chunk sails down the table in slow motion and finally splatters all over Elmer’s face. Blossom gasps, Bubbles moans, and Ms. Keane gasps as well. All three are quite shocked and dismayed by what has just happened. Close-up of Elmer, pulling back slowly. His mouth is wobbling, and he is sniffling and doing his best to keep from crying. As he loses the remains of his composure, Floyd and Mitch smile cruelly; finally, he breaks down crying. Buttercup, still standing on the table with paste in her hand, loses her gleeful expression when she sees everyone staring at her. Cut to her perspective, panning across the class; Blossom and Bubbles continue to silently look daggers at her in fury over her disrespect of poor Elmer.)

Kids: Oooooooohhhhhh! (The end of the table again; Ms. Keane glares at her.)

Ms. Keane: Buttercup! I am surprised at you! You know better than that! Now apologize right this instant!

Buttercup: But, Ms. Keane—

Ms. Keane: Little lady, apologize to poor Elmer.

(She ponders the paste in her hand for a silent moment, then sucks in a quick breath.)

Buttercup: But I didn’t mean to, and Mitch started it, and—

Ms. Keane: Buttercup!

(Realizing she can't talk her way out of it as Ms. Keane won't let her say anything else until she hears those two words out of her mouth, she sucks in another breath and groans slightly before trying again. Within two seconds, it becomes painfully obvious that she is out of her element.)

Buttercup: Elmer… I'm, uh… oh, but… um… I… why did you have to… I mean… I'm s-s-s… I'm s… I'm s-s-s… aw, you shoulda ducked! (The bell rings.)

Mitch: Whoo-hoo! Recess! (He runs off; the other kids are heard doing likewise.)

(Buttercup looks back and forth, and after a moment, she charges out after them. Ms. Keane bends over Elmer and begins to wipe his face.)

Ms. Keane: I'll deal with her later. For now, let's just get you cleaned up. Elmer—what those kids did was wrong. But you know it's really not good to eat paste.

Elmer: W-W-Why?

Ms. Keane: (pulling stick figure from his forehead) Well, for one thing, it’s an immutable act. If the other kids were to see you doing it, they might want to do it, too.

Kids: (from o.c.) Ewww! (Cut to the window; they are looking in.) No way!

Ms. Keane: (from o.c.) Children!

(They duck out of sight. Back to her and Elmer; he is still holding the jar of paste.)

Ms. Keane: Now you give me that— (taking jar away) —and go outside and play with your friends.

(At the end of this, the kids’ heads are poking up over the windowsill again. He hangs his head and walks slowly past her o.c. Dissolve to a long shot of him sitting under a tree on the playground and zoom in slowly to a close-up. It is clear he's still sore over Buttercup having not apologized to him and the bullying he received from Mitch and the Floyjoydson twins.)

Elmer: (sniffling) Stupid Mitch. Buttercup thinks she’s all cool just ’cause she has powers. (He pulls a jar of paste out of his coat and starts to open it.) I’d be cool if I had powers. She’s not so cool.

(He starts eating one handful after another. Zoom in slowly on the jar.)

Elmer: I’d be cool.

(Dissolve to a pool of some noxious liquid, with a pipe discharging into it, and pull back. It is a waste containment pond outside a chemical processing plant. The sign out front gives the company name: “INDUSTRIAL CHILDREN CHREAL CORD.” A hazardous-waste truck pulls up at the plant; cut to a sign hanging from the ceiling inside an observation room: “Marshmallow Toxic Filter Site.” Large vats of bubbling liquids can be seen through the windows of this room. Turn down to show a bank of levers and switches—this is a control room—and a technician with his feet propped up on the counter. He is eating a bowl of cereal and humming to himself. Near his feet is a rack of test tubes labeled “Toxic Samples”; a recycling bin sits on the floor across from him.)

(Close-up of the man, panning to his feet. He moves his foot and knocks one of the tubes lose; it tumbles to the floor and breaks. The contents glow green on the tiles.)

Technician: Oh!

(He leans over and soaks up the mess with his napkin, causing it to change appearance from white to the sickly green of the spilled contents from the test tube, which he then uses to wipe his face. He is left with glowing spots on his cheeks; his eyes go wide as he realizes his mistake too late, and after a moment, a large tentacle grows from each side of his face.)

Technician: Whoa. That’s definitely no good.

(He throws the napkin into the recycling bin. Cut to the front of the plant, where a worker picks the bin up and empties it into the waste truck. Inside, among the piles of garbage, a fly buzzes in through the hatch as it slides shut. After a moment, the insect lands on the glowing napkin and sucks up some of what it carries. Suddenly it grows several new pairs of wings, a couple of extra mouths, and quite a few additional eyes. It also increases in size and begins to glow.)

(When the hatch opens again, the truck is parked outside Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. The mutant fly makes its way out and starts to weave erratically through the air, its wings flapping in fits and starts. Finally, its forward motion stops, and it plummets o.c.; a splash of white rises into view, and a splattering noise is heard. Cut to an extreme close-up of Elmer’s jar of paste, with the fly stuck at the surface. His hand descends into view and scoops up another load, fly and all, the camera following as he lifts it to his mouth and eats it. He takes no notice of the addition.)

(Pull back to show his entire face as shadows fall across him.)

Mitch: (from o.c.) Get up.

(Elmer swallows hard as the reflections of Mitch, Lloyd, and Floyd appear in his glasses. Pull back to the entire group. He stands up and is promptly pushed down again by Mitch.)

Mitch: Get up, paste eater!

Floyd: Yeah! Get up! (Lloyd laughs as Elmer starts to do so.)

(Pan quickly to the girls. Buttercup laughs at the spectacle while her sisters watch from the background, still angry that Buttercup won't stop teasing poor Elmer.)

Buttercup: When will he ever learn?

Blossom: I’m tellin' Ms. Keane!

Buttercup: What?! I didn’t do nothin'! Oh, I’m always getting blamed.

(Back to the four boys. Elmer gets to his feet and coughs, spitting out glowing green sludge and moaning. A faint rumbling is heard.)

Mitch: (mock pity) Boy... you don’t look so good. Maybe you'd better… (pushing Elmer o.c.) ...sit down!

(He and the twins laugh. They do not immediately notice that the shove has left residue on his arms.)

Mitch: (disgustedly) Hey, hey, hey, what the—? What is this, man?

(Cut to Elmer, whose body has turned to glue. His glasses and mouth are still visible.)

Mitch: (from o.c., disgustedly) Ohhhh, is this your snot?

(On the end of this line, cut back to him and the twins and pull back. A large shadow falls across them as he continues.)

Mitch: Get it off, man! Get it off! Ohhhh, you’re gross!

Lloyd, Floyd: (softly) Hey, dude… (Close-up.)

Mitch: What?

Lloyd, Floyd: Dude… dude…

(Mitch looks up; cut to his perspective and turn up to show a towering glue creature with Elmer’s hairline and glasses. He roars, sounding nothing like his timid former self, and the camera pulls back behind the twins as he looks himself over, realizing what has happened to him. He blows a bubble from his mouth; when it pops, globs of glue fly everywhere on the playground. Mitch and the twins scream and run. Elmer smiles wickedly and slams his fist down on the lawn, leaving a large, sticky puddle behind. The kids avoid this hit, but he counters by reaching down with outstretched fingers and trapping one on each. He holds his hands up to his face and wiggles the fingers back and forth as the kids scream in terror.)

(Smiling, he flicks them off in all directions. The twins are plastered against the side of a passing airplane, while Mitch ends up glued to the top of the flagpole. Turn down to its base, where Buttercup is watching the action.)

Buttercup: Hey! (She takes off.)

Elmer: Huh?

Buttercup: Not so fast, paste eater!

(Elmer tenses up and begins to bubble, his anger towards Buttercup being the worst of his classmates who bullied him manifesting in his new mutant body. He swings his arm at Buttercup and knocks her into the wall of the school, next to where Blossom and Bubbles are sitting. The glue holds her to the masonry; she struggles to pull free, but without success. Her sisters look on with half-satisfaction, half-disgust over Buttercup's fate for her teasing of Elmer.)

Buttercup: Hurry! You gotta help me stop him!

Blossom: No way! You and those bullies deserve what you get for picking on poor little Elmer.

(Ms. Keane screams o.c.; cut to her being lifted into the air by Elmer. He makes as if to hit her. Back to the girls.)

Buttercup: Well, is she a bully?

Blossom, Bubbles: Ms. Keane!

(Elmer raises one gigantic foot, its shadow falling over the other kids.)

 Kids: Whoa… (The foot flattens the building.) Yaaaay!

Blossom, Bubbles: He’s gone crazy! (They take off.)

Buttercup: About time.

(Elmer goes into a windup, preparing to pitch Ms. Keane like a fastball, as the girls approach. He pulls back and launches the still-screaming teacher—and his entire fist—at them. They slam on the brakes and back-pedal as hard as they can, but the fist slams into them before they can get out of the way. It hits the remainder of the wall where Buttercup is trapped; now all four are in the same predicament. Elmer forms a new arm, then chuckles and stomps off toward Townsville.)

(The captives struggle against the glue holding them down, but are unable to break free. After several seconds, Blossom rounds on Buttercup.)

Blossom: None of this woulda happened if you’d just apologized in the first place!

Ms. Keane: He’s going to destroy Townsville! You’ve got to stop him!

Bubbles: But…we’re hot-glued to the wall!

Buttercup: That’s it! Heat ray!

(She aims her eye lasers at the glue and sweeps across. After a moment, the glue dries and cracks, and the girls succeed in freeing themselves; Ms. Keane, though, is still hanging around.)

Girls: Yeah!

Blossom: Come on! Let’s stick it to him! (They take off.)

Ms. Keane: Yay!

(Dissolve to a city street, with glue splattered everywhere. Turn up quickly to the spire of a building as Elmer reaches into view and tears it loose after a few seconds of hearing it crack from the strain. It is set in place in front of a group of other spires and columns, like a set of bowling pins; cut to Elmer, who forms a large ball in one hand. He pulls back, takes a few steps, and rolls this like a bowling ball. It barrels down the street and plows into the building pieces—a clean strike.)

Elmer: Yeah!

(He stops and sniffs the air for a moment—what is that funky smell? He looks at the sole of one foot, where he finds a screaming man looking up at him.)

Elmer: Oh, man!

(He wipes his foot on the sidewalk, scraping the man off and leaving him pinned there. A school bus is picked up next; the camera follows it on the way up to Elmer’s face on the next line.)

Bus riders: Whoooooaaaaaa…radical!

Blossom: (from o.c.) Hey! (Cut to the girls in flight.) You’d better stop it!

(Elmer grunts and holds the bus out in front of himself; surprise registers on their faces.)

Blossom: Watch out! Swerve! (She and Bubbles turn away o.c.)

Buttercup: What?

(The others avoid the bus, but she crashes into it and falls out of the sky. Blossom and Bubbles, watching from overhead, do not take this well.)

Blossom: That’s it! Now you’ve done it. Blood is thicker than glue! (They rush in.)

(Elmer does nothing as they approach him, except smile wickedly. When they hit his chest, though, they get stuck fast, with only their heads above the surface.)

Blossom: Uhh?! I’m stuck!

Bubbles: (struggling) Me too! (Elmer laughs down at them.)

Blossom, Bubbles: Buttercup!

(On the sidewalk, Buttercup starts to come around. She groans softly for some moments before being able to form a coherent word.)

Buttercup: What? (jumping up) No! Okay, pasty-face! You’re gonna get socked in the kisser! (She takes off.)

Blossom, Bubbles: No, Buttercup! You’ll just get stuck!

(Buttercup hits the brakes. The glue begins to envelop her sisters’ heads.)

Blossom: You know what you have to do! (Back to Buttercup.)

Bubbles: (from o.c.) And hurry! We’re sinking!

(A tense moment passes while Buttercup tries to figure out her next move, knowing that her sisters want her to apologize to Elmer for bullying him, but she still can't bring herself to do it.)

Buttercup: No! I can fight him! (She charges.)

(Her first idea: eye lasers. She blasts Elmer in the shoulder, hardening his entire arm—the one holding the bus—and causing it to crumble away, but he grows another one.)

Buttercup: (surprised) Huh—uh!

(She looks around herself; cut to a bakery, with sacks of flour piled up outside, and zoom in. She flashes into view, and the screen is filled with white clouds. When the view clears, she stands in the middle of the sacks and is covered with flour from head to toe.)

Buttercup: Ha! I'm flour, you're glue. Try to fight and I won't stick to you! (She takes off.)

(For understandable reasons, her light trail is now white instead of the usual green. She moves in on Elmer and taunts him.)

Buttercup: (Sing-song voice) You can't stick to me! You can't stick to me!

(Cut to Elmer as Buttercup approaches him.)

Buttercup: Nyah nyah-nyah-nyah— (He opens a large hole in his midsection and she flies right through.) —nyah?

(Now he aims a punch in her direction; she dodges out of the way just in time, and he smashes away the wall of a building behind her. Inside, an opera singer strikes a high note that lasts for some seconds.)

Singer: No… (She faints.)

(Meanwhile, Blossom and Bubbles are still sinking into Elmer’s chest.)

Blossom: There’s only one thing you can do!

Buttercup: NO! Anything but that! (Her coating of flour is gone.)

Blossom: Buttercup! (She and Bubbles disappear from sight. Meanwhile, Buttercup faces a hard decision: Apologize to Elmer for bullying him, or let her sisters drown in his gluey body. Either way, for Buttercup, it's a no-win situation.)

Buttercup: No, no, no, no, NO!…ALL RIGHT! ELMER!

(He stops in the middle of tearing another building apart upon hearing her bellow.)

Elmer: Huh?

Buttercup: Uh…I-I-I’m…s-s-s-so-s-s-so-o-o…o-o-r-r…r-r-r-ry!

(Doubtless, these are the hardest words she has ever had to say. Her reflection appears in Elmer’s glasses; he has been caught completely by surprise. What he says next is not in his more mature, monster voice.)

Elmer: (normal voice) W-W-What?

Buttercup: I’m…sorry if I picked on you, and…I’m sorry if I called you a…paste eater.

(He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and pulls the other girls out of his chest.)

Elmer: (sniffling) Thanks, Buttercup. That’s all I wanted.

(Dissolve to the city skyline, now held together with the radioactive glue.)

Narrator: A reconstructed city of Townsville!

(Pull back to show the subdivision and Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, both of which are being put back together with Elmer’s help.)

Narrator: Reconstructed Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. A school in the sleepy suburb of— (Elmer glares at the camera.) Oh. Uh—I’m sorry.

(Close-up of the work. Blossom carries a board o.c. while Buttercup scoops some glue from Elmer’s arm onto another.)

Buttercup: Thanks for helping, Elmer. (She puts the board down; he licks glue onto a third and sets it in place.)

Elmer: Uh…Buttercup?

Buttercup: Yeah?

Elmer: (laughing nervously) You’re cool.

Buttercup: Yeah. Let’s stick together.

(The standard end shot comes up.)

Narrator: (laughing) Oh, Buttercup. We love glue. So once again the day is saved—thanks to the Powerpuff Girls!