Stan's Secret Is Out

I promise, this will only take a second. Surprise! Oh, my gosh! What's the occasion? I can't believe you don't remember what today is. I know what today is. I wouldn't forget an important day like today. It's The anniversary The anniversary Of Of The day The day I can't take this anymore. I can't take this anymore Stan, it's our anniversary. Remember when you joined our family three years ago? Of course I do. It was the most special day of my life. Along with my wedding day and the day my puppies were born. And the day I felt bad because I forgot our anniversary. That's today. We got you presents. Your favorite dog treats. And a new chew toy. Thanks, guys. This is fantastic! I'm going to start chewing him right now. Oh, hello, Robert. This just got very awkward. So now the credit card company is saying that a piano was charged to my card. I didn't buy a piano. Did you buy a piano? Of course I didn't buy a piano. Why would I buy a piano? And where is this piano? Come on, move out of the way. I need to get the kids' anniversary present upstairs. And this keeps happening. Who keeps charging these things to our card? I'm as confused by all these charges are you are. I mean, a hang glider, two hundred pounds of bacon, a subscription to Poodle Lovers magazine? You're the impulse shopper! If you think Oh, no. The rope is starting to break. Not now, Stan. We're having a problem with a piano. It's going to fall on you! Get out of the way! Are you okay, honey? I think so, are you o Did Stan just talk? Uh, no. I mean, woof. He did it again. Yeah, the kids reacted pretty much the same way when they found out. You've talked this whole time? Yes. All those times we heard someone talking, like on Halloween, that was you? Yes. And will you stop poking me? Wait, were you the voice I heard whispering from the kitchen telling me to eat more cake? No, I'm the voice that whispers, "Make a steak. " But I guess you hear what you want to hear. And Ian. When he said you were a talking dog he wasn't crazy. Nope. Just evil. And a little ticklish. But evil ticklish. You tickle him and he goes Gracie, Freddy. Bennett and Ellen know. It's okay to talk to them now. Hi, Gammaw and Gamps. I eat rabbit poop in the yard. The puppies talk too? And they call me "Gammaw"? Where's the cake? Well, once you learned I can talk, is it really such a surprise about the puppies? Crazy, huh, Robert? Robert talks too? Does he call me "Gammaw?!" So after all these years, Bennett and Ellen finally found out. I have to say, I'm relieved the pressure of keeping the secret is finally off. You write a blog, too? Hey, kids. How was school? Great. Good. I don't go to school anymore. So there's nothing you want to tell us about? No secret you think it might be time to share? Nope. Nothing. I didn't go to school today either. See? I told you guys. The kids would never keep a secret from you. You were right, Stan. Yeah. Should've listened to you. What do we do?! I don't know! I'm pretty sure they can hear everything we're saying! Of course they can! We're standing right behind them! So, the dog talks. Kinda weird. You guys are terrible at this. How did you keep this a secret from us for three years? You have no idea what we went through. Tricking your book editor Donating all the Christmas presents And I delivered puppies as a French doctor. You speak French?! So long are we gonna stand here? I made a sandwich. I wouldn't even be freaking out like this over Tyler speaking French if I weren't so off balance because the dog talks! Why did you kids never tell us about this? We were afraid you'd send Stan away to be experimented on. It's been our biggest fear. Oh, kids, I guess I can understand why you would be concerned about that. But don't worry. Now that we see how important Stan is to you, we would never let anything like that happen. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mom. Stan is a pretty special dog, isn't he? You know, it's because of Stan that the three of us have become such good friends over these last few years. Yeah, I pretty much raised them. You're welcome. Excuse me, Robert. I need some coffee. Uh, Mom, Robert doesn't actually talk. He's just Stan's chew toy. Well how am I supposed to know what talks and what doesn't talk around here? Does the coffee maker talk? Maybe. I don't know! I do talk, Ellen. I also do espresso. Nah, that was just me. I also throw my voice a little. Karl! Great news! Stan, wait I'm too happy to wait. Bennett and Ellen know I can talk and they are totally cool with it! Stan, my father is back from the space station. That's great, Karl. And he's fixing my TV. I was in space on a top secret mission searching for alien life. What a surprise that when I finally encountered it, it would be in my son's shed. I believe he prefers to call it his lair, and I realize that should probably not be my take-away from what you just said. I can't believe those guys from the space program took us out of our house. And put us in this exact copy of our house so they could observe us. Why are they doing this? I think they want to observe us in our natural habitat. There's nothing natural about it. There's only one channel on this TV. That's us. They have us on closed circuit TV. Still, a family with a talking dog? That's a good show! Well, I am not just going to sit here and let them do this to us. Hey! Hey, you let us out of here! No force field's gonna keep me back! Hey, come on! Hey, guys! Knockedy. Knockedy. What do you want with us, Colonel Fink? Stan and the puppies are clearly aliens. What other explanation can there be for their talking? So they are now property of the US Space Command Secret Aliens Division. We at the SAD Sad? We used to be, but now we found aliens. We will study them and question them to find out what planet they are from and why they're here. You can't do this! We can and we will. The SAD will be able to get budget increases. We'll finally get a foosball table for the break room. First game! You guys heard that. How long are you going to keep us for? You aliens will never be set free. The rest of you must be kept here until we can determine if you're aliens too. And if you're willing to keep our plans for a foosball table secret. We don't want those weasels at Health and Human Services whining, "They got one, why can't we have one?" So, Stan, tell me. What planet are you from? Clearly you're not an earth dog. Earth dogs don't talk. They do if they time traveled from a future where all animals talk and humans are kept as pets and duckways. What's a duckway? About four pounds. What?! Up top! If you give us treats, we'll tell you everything we know. Very good then. One, two, three, four, five. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A cow says "Mooo. " A sheep says "Baaaa. " That's everything we know. I can't believe you fell for "duckway. " That's such a henfer. What's a henfer? Laying eggs. Woo! Up top! I don't do well in captivity. Little known fact about me, as a child I was trapped in the aviary at the zoo. I spent a weekend in there before anyone noticed. It was hawk-ward. Good one, Ellen. If we don't get out of here, that could be my final "good one. " If only I could believe that were true. We just found out about the dogs talking ourselves. And that they were charging things to our credit card. I gave a thousand dollars to a charity called "Bacon Wrapped Cats. " I'm taking the deduction. But what is that? I'm getting nowhere with you. I'm going to interrogate the girls. I think the girls went off to the bathroom. Those toilets are fake. Girls, the toilets are fake! Information that would've been good to have five minutes ago! This show's taking a weird turn! Colonel Fink, we'll be taking over here. I believe these papers make it clear that the Army now has jurisdiction. My foosball table. I was going to paint faces on the players to look like the gang at Space Command. It's not weird. We will be using Stan to breed a commando force of talking dogs, which will have the unique ability to infiltrate behind enemy lines. I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I want my freedom. On the other hand, commanding a talking dog army. I could finally use my commando crawl. Thusly. Imagine a whole army coming at you like this. All right, men, let's get set up. Not so fast. We'll be taking over here. I believe these papers make it clear that I now have jurisdiction. My secret dog army. We wasted five years and four trillion dollars perfecting camouflage poop bags. Ian, what are you doing here? Thought you'd seen the last of me, did you? Well, I was able to convince the government to fund my talking animal research. Actually, it's a line item in a thousand page omnibus bill that no one's read, but I have my funding. And funding for these poop bags with my face on them. They also gave me money to build this. Just turn the force field off and go around. It's a device to transfer the ability to talk from one animal to another. I've never had an animal to test it on until now. So I don't even know if it works but I'm hopeful. Why didn't you test it on yourself? You don't test a talking animal machine on a person. Why not? You just don't, okay?! Mom and Dad are trying to talk some sense into Ian. What are you doing, Stan? Trying to figure out this machine. I've learned a lot from Karl hanging out in his shed. These components look similar to something he was working on, only his was a machine that would give him the cool appeal of a hipster. His first attempt went horribly wrong. He grew a handlebar mustache unfortunately, it was on his butt. Butt-stache. It's great that you understand this stuff. Now, we can disable Ian's machine. No, Avery. That wouldn't change anything. They won't leave any of us alone as long as the puppies and I can talk. I think I can reverse this machine so it will turn me and the puppies into regular dogs. Dogs who can't talk. Stan, no. No, no, no! You can't make yourself not talk. If you're just a regular dog, you won't be Stan anymore. What choice do I have? It's the only thing I can think of to make everyone leave the family alone. Maybe being a regular dog won't be so bad. Stan, you can't do this. You're family. What is going on in here? Ian, Stan rewired your machine to take away his ability to talk. Just call off this craziness before things go too far. Ian, please! Stan, no! You have to stop him! Wait! Stan, you can't do this! We'll find another way. Don't do it, Stan! You have to stay you! I'll always love you kids even if I can never say it again. No! No! No!!! Stan? Stan, Say something. Stan, no. Why'd you do it? You're the best friend that I've ever had. You stupid dog! You ruined everything! Again! Ian, please, isn't there something you can do to make Stan talk again? No. It's over. You are useless to me now. Your family can go. I love Stan so much. I would rather stay in there forever than have Stan do what he did. He did it for us. Shows how much Stan loves this family. You're so brave. I'm gonna miss him so much. Did it work, Dada? Gracie, shhhh! Not till we get out of here. I mean woof. It was a trick! Get them! Run! Karl, Avery and Chloe are hiding the puppies until we can figure out if it's safe. Is your dad around? And why are you dressed like our kitchen drapes? Answer the first question first. My father's not home, And I am dressed in my kitchen camo because I was plotting your rescue. But I see you effected it without my help. No worries. The face paint only takes an hour to apply and the resulting rash only takes a week to recover from. I'm sorry I scared you guys by not telling you about my plan to trick Ian, but I needed your reactions to be real. Hey, we could've faked our reactions. I fake my reaction to Mom's hip-hop dance performances. You love my hip-hop dance performances. I know, I do! We're just glad you can still talk. We should've known it wasn't for real when you told us Karl was working on a machine to turn himself into a hipster. You mean the Hipstinator 5000. I think it's starting to work on me. I already like a handful of really terrible bands. Listen, what are we going to do? We can't stay here, Karl's father could return any time, we can't go home, they're gonna be looking for us there, and we need some kind of plan. Guys, my secret's out. So many people know, it'll never be a secret again. But what if we go public so everyone knows? If I'm famous and beloved, the government won't be able to bother me anymore. And let's face it, how could I not be beloved with this punim? We need some big event that's happening live so we can get Stan in front of TV cameras before anyone finds him. The Hollywood Entertainment Awards are tonight! If we go, we can get Stan on live TV! Bennett, I need seven thousand dollars for a dress. So Karl, are you coming? Wouldn't miss it. Do you think they have these curtains? It's highly unlikely. Then I'll stay here. So how do we get in? Well, when we were trying to hide Stan's secret, we needed a lot of shenanigans or a plan so crazy it just might work. But now we're trying to expose the secret, so maybe we need a plan that's the opposite of crazy. Hi, I need tickets to the awards show for five people, a dog, and two puppies. Well, that was surprisingly easy. They just went inside! We need to follow! Four, please. You can't be here! I have jurisdiction. Not anymore. You lost them they're fair game now. Hurry up! We need to get in there! Cool your jets. We're trying to get seats together. Welcome back to the 61st annual Hollywood Entertainment Awards. And now the nominees for Best Performance By A Comedy Actor Playing a Serious Role To Prove He's A Real Actor. Okay, we just have to wait for the right time for Stan to go onto the stage. Or now is good. I just have one question: what's the difference between sound editing and sound mixing? Nobody knows, am I right? Actually, sound editing is more placement of sound, while mixing is more adjusting Aaah! I guess I'll never know. Maestro, give me a little vamp in the key of E flat and try to follow along. Come on, guys. I need back-up singers. He needs us. We're his family. Our first shenanigan as a family let's do it! That was amazing. How do you do that? Years of training with some of the finest vocal coaches in the world. What?! No, I'm just kidding. I'm a regular singing dog. And there, my friends, is the sugaaaaar. And that's the story of how I became a world-famous celebrity. Becoming a celebrity meant that I'd never have to worry about anyone experimenting on me ever again. And the next year, I was back at the Hollywood Entertainment Awards as a nominee. And the only nominee for Best Talking Dog is Stan, in The Bells of Portugal. But you see, Isabella, I'm not in love with your sister I'm in love with you. But through it all, the only thing that has really mattered to me is the one thing to be part of a real family. Many among the millions who now read my blog have asked me, "What's it like being a talking dog?" Well, in a lot of ways, I'm just like you are. Nothing means more to me after a long day than a hug from the people I love. We love you too, Stan. I can't imagine what our lives would be like without you. So long.