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June 12, 2005
The Adventures of Quacki Chen
Kung Foo-ey story treatment. Script #001 of the adventures of Quacki Chen.
June 12, 2005
written by Thomas Hudson Reeve © Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
Quacki Chen lives on the edge of a farm near the barn at the edge of the meadow on a little lake by the edge of the woods. He nests in a marshy corner of the pond, and lives alone, but he believes that he must have kin somewhere, and hopes someday to find them. He is on good terms with most of the animals on the farm - for he is a decent duck - but he does not quite fit into the life of the barnyard. He stands on the edge of this “village” of beasts, not fully engaged in the ordered world of the fully domesticated. Yet he does not really belong with the wild animals either. Although he knows creatures of the woods, they are hard to make friends with for they can be impulsive, suspicious, forgetful, rude, silly, selfish, and, in short, quite wild.
The closest thing he has to family is the old Swan who lives alone on the far side of the pond. This is Master Wan, a sage Kung-Fooey master, and a mysterious figure to the barnyard animals that fear his magic. For Quacki he is a revered teacher, a mentor, and also an Uncle whose guidance he trusts when others are pulling him this way and that for their own motives.
His toughest problem on the farm is a young rooster named Crow Red Cluck who struts around the yard and loudly proclaims his superiority, saying that it is he who summons the sun each day, so they better treat him with respect. He doesn’t just boss the hens around, he’s rude to the sheep, mean to mice and frogs, and looks down on the pigs. He acts like a friend to the goats, but then tells unflattering stories about them to impress the horses. He treats the cattle like chattel.
As for the lone quiet Quacki, Crow bullies and chides him every chance he gets. He enjoys ridiculing him in front of others, making fun of his blunt beak and webbed feet, and calling him “Soggy Bottom”. It makes Quacki angry, but Master Wan has taught him not to be drawn into fighting, especially with a fluffed up fool like Crow Red Cluck. (Maybe, but it is still hard to leave Crow’s words unanswered).
None the less, things are pretty good for all the animals at the farm until the day that a roving gang of nasty weasels discovered this pleasant prosperous place. These snarling beady-eyed brigands are greedy and violent thieves, and they immediately plot to raid the henhouse and steal the eggs. They wait for night to fall.
When the attack comes it is swift and shocking. Hens that fight back are hurt, the rest are scattered in panic, the eggs are stolen, or just carelessly smashed as the vandalistic weasels wreck the house and spill mayhem out into the yard. Crow Red Cluck comes running up and starts to fight them, but not very well. He loses heart and tries to flee, but there are too many weasels and he is overwhelmed and taken captive along with a couple of hens. Surrounded by his hench-weasels the especially nasty Master Black Weasel Wizard beats up Crow Cluck with his “weasel style” Kung-Fu, and threatens to enslave or kill the chickens.
While this crisis unfolds, a mouse tells a squirrel, the squirrel tells a frog, and the frog hops down to Quacki’s nest and breathlessly reports the calamity unfolding up the hill at the henhouse.
There is no time to cross the water and ask Master Wan what to do, so Quacki must try to help on his own.
Meanwhile, back at the Henhouse, Crow Red, who has been tied up, tells the weasels they are the ones in trouble, for now he will summon the sun to blind their beady little eyes. He crows, but nothing happens. The gang of weasels stops for a moment to see if his magic works, but it doesn’t. He tries again with all his might, but again nothing, and now the weasels just laugh at him.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard sneers with contempt at the foolish rooster and executes a lightning fast move that takes the cockscomb and dewlap of the rooster’s head and ties them around his beak, knotting his mouth shut. He then speaks his own magic words and casts a spell that covers the moon with clouds. Instead of getting lighter, it gets darker, and the red weasel eyes glow brighter. The Hench-weasels menacingly close in around the terrified Chickens.
But just in time Quacki bursts onto the scene and smashes into the gang with his Fledgling Flying Duck style Kung-Fooey, breaking their grip on the chickens and sending everyone flying and falling.
He squares up against a ring of weasels and battles them one against five. Crow Red, tied up, hops around trying to get out of the way.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard directs his top lieutenants, Snivel and Yellow Tooth to grab the eggs, and take a hen and Crow Red hostage. Preparing to leave he calls out, “Finish him off, send him where I sent his father.’ Then he turns and is gone through the tall grass towards the woods. (There are eight weasels including Master Ming).
The fighting resumes, and it looks bad for Quacki, though he fights well. But just when it appears he is in mortal jeopardy there is a new surprise - A big light shining all over the yard comes on, It could almost be mistaken for the sun itself, but it is followed by the blast of the farmers gun and a commotion of dogs. It is electric light, and together with the shotgun, it sends the weasels scrambling away in fear.
The black Weasel Wizard, hearing the commotion, decides it’s better to change course and head to the edge of the lake.
At the barnyard the dogs are running in circles confused by the frightened animals and the weasel scents crisscrossing in all directions. Quacki pulls himself together and climbs up on the fencepost. With great determination he flies off in pursuit of the weasel wizard.
Down at the lake, Master Wan silently glides into a gentle water landing with hardly a ripple and slides toward the shore. Looking up, he waves his wings in a gesture that pulls the clouds off the moon.
Master Ming and company arrives at the lakeshore. He looks up at the moon and wonders for moment, but shrugs it off and casts a spell that transforms a fallen tree trunk into a boat resting on the shore next to the water. Sniver and Scrafe load the plunder into the boat and push it into the water.
Suddenly Quacki arrives with an ungraceful splash crash nearby in shallows with tall reeds sticking out of the water. He demands that they leave the captives, and be gone.
Yellow Tooth is already in the boat with Crow Red (bound and gagged) and a hysterical hen, drifting out into the water. Snivel, still on the bank, turns and lunges at Quacki, but Master Wan suddenly intercepts him mid-air, spins round and round and releases him like the Olympic hammer throw far out into the lake.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard steps forward, “Why it’s old broken master swan, I thought you must be dead, or a coward, how nice to see you, even if you are very rude to my friend. But I shall return the favor”
He casts a spell that transforms the dozen or so reeds around Quacki into snakes that attack him. They wind around him and bite him, and drag him down into the water.
Master Wan begins to go at the Wizard Weasel with his magic power. The two masters, one good, one evil, have powers too equal for one to prevail easily. But Quacki’s distress in the water causes Master Wan to break off the engagement before it can be resolved. He knocks the weasel for a loop, but then goes to help the duck.
Master Ming feels no need to stay and fight, since he sees he has won. Snivel has the plunder, and will rendezvous with him on the other side of the lake.
Master Wan saves Quacki by reversing the spell on the reeds.
They are sitting in the water and Quacki says, “ Master, quick, we must rush out and stop the last weasel in the boat”.
Master Wan explains calmly that they will swim out now, but they needn’t hurry. As they swim, in the moonlight, they can see the silhouette of the boat with the outlines of the chickens and the weasel. Suddenly from above, the streaking shape of Master Hu the Owl swoops down and plucks the weasel right out of the boat with its talons.
As he flies overhead, Master Wan calls up, “Many Thanks Master Hu, I am in your debt!”
“That’s a hoot, Master Wan, Thanks for supper.”
They get to the boat, and it turns back into a log, but they float it back to the shore, and everyone is safe.
The dawn is coming and Master Wan unties Crow Red Cluck and unties his beak, so he can crow in the new day.
written by Thomas Hudson Reeve © Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
Posted by photocartoonist at June 12, 2005 7:34 PM