Behind the Scenes Week - Bonus Sunday Edition!

Hello from the Writers Room!

We have been informed by the Legal Department that we have to do one more Behind the Scenes Week post. The original week contained six days of posts, which we thought was plenty. But the douchebag lawyers are mad because we made them do one of the days. They threatened to contact our union about it, because apparently that is some sort of violation to have non-union writers fill in. They said it has to be a Sunday post, since there was no Sunday post (softball league) in the original week. We tried to argue that it would be a violation of our Constitutional rights, because our religion views Sunday as a day of rest. The lawyers sent back an email that said, "Then we'll see you in hell." Apparently, since we had posted on Sundays in the past, it set a precedent that a "week" for this weblog includes all seven days. So it was either do a Sunday post, or get fired.

They can make us post another day, but they can't make us work weekends. Fuck that.

This is the Sunday post. We are requesting that nobody reads this until Sunday. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of the reading public, if they choose to read this post a few days early.

There, that should cover our asses...

Now, on to the letters.

Our first letter is another incoherent rant from Josh Williams:

I do not question Mr McDougals quality's as a man and human being to be
worthy of the office "President of The United States of
America" however I do wonder if his past may haunt him and his many enemas
who will surely betray him. Does "Friends of" and his worker bee's realize that
McDougal has so many enemas?

What the fuck? OK, I think I can make a tiny bit of sense from that poorly written bullshit... McDougal has no concern whatsoever about those who consider themselves his enemies. He has crushed out the souls of better men than them, 100 times over. Don't believe me? Consider this... In December of 2001, Saddam Hussein borrowed McDougal's "Caligula" DVD. He was supposed to return it before Valentine's Day, but he never did. Look where Saddam is now.

Our next letter comes from Carl Spackler, who asks:

has mcdougal ever been married...is he divorced...does he have kids?

McDougal has been married dozens of times. We've written about a few of them here. If you click on the "marriage" tag at the bottom of this post, you will be able to read about a few of his marriages. McDougal has never been divorced, but he has been widowed many times. His brides have a habit of dying under mysterious circumstances. McDougal has somewhere in the neighborhood of 938 children. Most are illegitimate, born to prostitutes and other loose women. McDougal is incredibly fertile. There are several medically verified instances where McDougal has walked past an ovulating woman during a strong windstorm and accidentally impregnated her.

The next one comes from Damnsle, who writes:

Tu me dis qu’elle est melo, ou tu me dis qu’elle aimait l’eau?

Um... Punt?

Our final letter is a late entry from Sombrero11, who writes:

I often suffer from crippling writer's block. How is it that you are so prolific?

Well, Mr. Eleven, we have a whole writing staff here at FriendsOfMcDougal. Most of the time, if one of the writers is blocked up, the other writers can pick up the slack. However, occasionally all of the writers will be hit with simultaneous cases of writer's block. When this happens, we will just throw in some filler, like a funny picture or a couple of reader-submitted letters. Sometimes a writer will hit on an idea that seems promising, but they can't quite make it work. Most of the time, they will just pass the idea on to another writer and let them finish it. But every so often someone comes up with an idea that no one can make work. Here is an unfinished and unedited draft of one such story:

I am a Friends of McDougal from the Mycenaean Era.
He went by a different
name then. Your history books call him "Agamemnon."
I was sadly killed,
however, when Agamemnon (McDougal) incurred the wrath of Artemis (the goddess,
not Artemis Gordon from Wild Wild West). Fortunately, I was washed overboard in
port as McDougal's fleet prepared to sail for Troy, and never received a proper
burial.
Imagine my surprise, when I was revived eleven months ago by none
other than AgaMcDougalnon at a truck stop outside of Dubuque, Iowa. Aside from a
terrible headache and the predictable problems associated with my 3,600-year-old
military attire. The headache was fortunately a result of a hefty dose of crank
McDougal had served up as a revival peptide. And the fashion situation was
remedied by a quick stop at a Bass Pro Shop.
It would seem that the world
has changed considerably more than McDougal initially let on in the past four
millennia. While McDougalmemnon tried to keep me shielded from the trappings of
modern society, I have recently been granted my freedom and have discovered ...

We really tried to make this one work, but no one could do a damn thing with it. It makes a good chunk of filler though, doesn't it? I hope this helps you.

Well, that's it for Behind the Scenes Week. Stay tuned for more info on the Official McDougal Presidential Campaign Internship Contest!

What the hell just happened there?

Loni Andersen was the best since I
have you RIGged this infernal machine to automatically trunkate my posts? Like you have me Then he shouldn't have said "bacon on the side"
That's not a BLTon some kind of pay no mind list? I've seen this shit before, dPerry White or Perry Mason?ung, it's calleSeems like you might have let the air out first.d a mutiny. And I'll not stand for it.
Now I know which one you are though. You're the red haired firecracker with tits Lou Diamond Phillips has my back on thisto the moon. I

1. 
   Still can't believe she wouldn't take the goat in exchange for THAT MUCH LETTUCE.

know you, woman. I was married to you for 11 years. You may or may not remember me, but I'm the one who got you the new teeth. You were a funny vixIf I could have done six times the load, you know I would haveen when I found you, lying severely beaten and nearly dead off the 126. Said you were on your way back from TJ, where you were working some dog and pony show for the tourists for something like $44/hour. Lived like royalty down there for that wage. But your heart was black as coal, and you know it. I saved your life woman.
But you know all this. And that's not what You're going to have to spend the night with Reba. I don't know how many nights. She's not back from Yuma yet.I want to talk about anyway. Couple of things while I'm sober. This presidential business. Sure, I'll run. But I want to make a few things clear:

• Walken's out. I want nothing to do with him. That is to say, he's out of the campaign bus. Of course, he's my guy for Veep. He was in that movie with Chris Rock right? Wait, is Chris Rock the wrestler, or is I mean, come on, it's 2071. Things have changed since then.that Charlie Murphy. The one with the funny facial tick. That's the one I want. If he's not at my side, call the whole thing off. And by my side, I mean nowhere near me or my handlers. I don't want to see him, talk to him, or hear what he says in support of our campaign. We're in this together ... but apart. I still don't have an N key. Now, every time I want to type an N, I have to turn the computer sideways and type a Z.

I don't know what a M.E.A.T. party is. But I believe in their principles. So they can count me in Let's just borrow the money, then call Peter Ustinov when it's time to collect.as their leader. I'll do this for free, but I want an honorarium. I want a lump sum payment of I don't think it's a barracudanearly $8,000,000. The exact amount doesn't concern me, but it better not exceed the agreed upon fNo, you're going to have to -- hold on, I have another call. It's the Chancellor. He's come for the goiter, and I can't cover for you anymore.igure by one penny. I also want Tom Delay and John Ashcroft involved. And I want a pint of mescaline and a tanker truck full of those tiny little M&M's. I'm going to throw those to supporters at campaign rallies. I'm going to start training now so that by the time the campaign kicks off, I'll be able to launch them with such accuracy that I'll be able to take out a robin's eye at a quarter mile, if needed. And, trust me, it will be needed.
It took me six days to type all that shit up there. My anger has subsided some, and I can't remember who I'm writing this to. Patrick Swayze once said thatDid I tell you that I fixed the N problem? You have to be smarter than the machine, that's what I always say.

McDougal's Rucksack

McDougal's a big fan of old school science fiction (Original Star Trek, Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Logan's Run, etc.). The big guy doesn't talk about his passion for photon beams and robots though. For some reason, I think he's a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.

Of course, he'd kill me for saying so, but I actually met McDougal at a Star Trek convention in Reno back in 1974. I was working the trading cars and action figures booth, and McDougal was on a three-day PCP jag that had started in Galveston, Texas, following the nullification of his second marriage to Rosemary Clooney. George was young then, maybe six or seven, and I don't think old McDougal had official custody of the boy, but he was traveling with him nonetheless.

The boy looked scared and hungry -- all crammed in McDougal's rucksack like that. You could just see his eyes peering out between a 6-foot Klingon flag and a bloodied garden hoe. If not for those scared little eyes, I'd have never approached McDougal. But as it was, I was prompted to leave my booth, and offer the eyes the rest of my funnel cake.

You know McDougal doesn't like anyone walking up behind him -- especially not three days into a PCP freakout. But I had no way of knowing about McDougal or his state of mind when I approached him.

I led with the funnel cake, arms outstretched in what McDougal must have interpreted as a furtive and combative gesture. Before I got within three feet of him, he'd spun around and unsheathed the hoe with one hand and the Klingon flag with the other. He bashed the side of my skull with the business end of the hoe then lopped my head off with a boot knife and impaled it on the end of his Klingon flagpole.

Then he said, in perfect Klingon, "No one attacks me with impunity." (Nemo me impune lacessit.)

This action was received by great applause from the 600 or so convention goers, and I must admit that even I was impressed.

I was going to clap as well, but was in a bit of an awkward situation, having just been decapitated by the great man.

When the applause died down, McDougal had a chance to survey the situation and he realized I wasn't actually ever a threat to him. He was quite apologetic, and I kind of felt a little guilty. I could tell he felt bad, and maybe a little embarrassed.

"Don't sweat it at all, old boy," I said (trying to play it cool as the other side of the pillow. "Let's just have me off of here and back on my shoulders where I belong."

As McDougal pulled my severed head from atop the Klingon flag and clumsily re-attached it to my torso (picture Chewbacca attempting to reassemble C-3PO in Empire Strikes Back), I had to ask -

"Who's the wee lad in the rucksack?"

McDougal was taken aback. He'd apparently forgotten George Clooney was in there. Of course, this wasn't a big deal because he hadn't even been on Facts of Life yet and nobody knew who he was -- just some toe-headed kid in a rucksack as far as we knew.

"Oh him," he sighed. "That's Rosemary's baby."

Of course, Rosemary was actually George's aunt, but we didn't know any better. We were pretty damn impressed.

Here was a man who spoke perfect Klingon (which we later learned was actually Gaelic) and had the spawn of Satan in a rucksack at a Star Trek convention.

I knew we were in for a lifetime of good times.

Sure, I still get these blinding headaches, but man ... I've never been to a more exciting convention.

Teen People Interview

Every year when I come home for the holidays, I sneak into the attic and go through my old foot locker full of childhood memorabilia and half-empty bottles of stolen liquor.

At the bottom of my trunk, I found an issue of Teen People Magazine with McDougal on the cover. As you can imagine, I was quite shocked at this find.

This magazine is an important part of the McDougal lore because it contains one of the only known photos of McDougal in recorded history.

I've taken the time to copy the transcript of the interview from this issue.

Who is McDougal?
Ten Questions With Archibald McDougal
By Sassy Montgomery
Teen People Magazine

This being my first assignment with Teen People, I was a little apprehensive when my editor told me I was going to be tasked with uncovering the mystery that is McDougal. I was hoping to spend the day with the man, to really learn how he lives and be able to uncover what makes him tick.

Unfortunately, McDougal's handlers would not allow me direct access to him, and he agreed only to conduct the interview using a confusing combination of ship-to-shore radio, semaphore, Morse Code, and smoke signals. McDougal would only answer ten questions, and there would be no follow-up on his responses.

1. Who are you?

I am a man, same as you.

2. But I am not a man. I am a young lady.

That's question number two.

3. But that wasn't a question.

Three

4. OK, umm ... When were you born?

I was born in the Pleiades in the Electra solar system.

5. I said "when" not "Where".

Time is of little matter to me. I am eternal as Ross Martin's career.

6. Who is Ross Martin?

Artemis Gordon of "The Wild, Wild West."

7. Has he done anything since that show?

Don't be foolish. He was in "The Return of Charlie Chan," "The Three Robonic Stooges," "Greatest Heros of the Bible," and "I Married Wyatt Earp." The man's a legend.

8. How many questions do I have left?

Two.

9. How do you earn a living?

No man earns a living. Life is a gift bestowed upon the deserving and undeserving alike. Only the great man appreciates this gift and capitalizes on it.

10. How do you capitalize on it?

That, my dear young friend, is the question of the universe, isn't it?

11. Are you asking me a question?

No more questions from you. It's my turn now.

12. OK.

13. So how do you capitalize on it?

14. I'm not sure how to number these anymore.

Do not use any more numbers. Ever. Never mention numbers again as long as you live.

OK.

So how do you capitalize on it?

Umm ... by taking time to --

Don't mention time. It involves numbers. Let's desist the quantitative view of life.

OK. Then ... I capitalize on the gift of life by savoring every moment.

No. There is only one moment. Right now. The past and future are illusory. They're like numbers that way.

I don't understand.

Then you're retarded.

Am not.

You're denial only proves my point.

What point?

Ha! Now you've got it. There is no point.

No point to what?

There is no what.

Then what is there?

Nothing. Only this moment.

What about everything I've done before and will do from here on.

What have you done?

Well, I graduated from Summa Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University.

There you go with the numbers again.

Who am I talking to?

Who am I?

I thought I was going to be interviewing McDougal.

As did I.

You thought you were going to be interviewing McDougal?

I did. And I am.

No, you're interviewing me.

I am.

And who do you think I am?

Who do you think you are?

I don't know.

I do.

Then why question me, if you already have all the answers.

I'm not.

Yes you are. You asked me how I capitalize on the gift of life.

I did nothing of the sort.

You asked me.

Yes, I know. But you turned it around and then asked me.

Did I?

Umm ... Yes. I think so. Yes.

And did you answer?

Yes, but you said my answer was wrong.

There are no wrong answers.

Then I was right?

There are no right answers.

I don't understand.

There are no answers.

Only questions?

There are no questions, you said so yourself.

No, I said you shouldn't count my statements as questions.

Then what should I count them as?

Nothing. You shouldn't count them.

My point exactly. There should be no counting.

But you said I could have ten questions.

And who am I to tell you how many questions you might have?

Uhh ... McDougal?

There is no McDougal.

Then why am I here?

Why are you here?

To interview McDougal.

And have you done so?

I tried.

So you deem the attempt a failure? How did you plan on measuring your success? With numbers?

Well ... no. I just wanted answers -

There are no answers.

Then why did you agree to the interview?

I never did.

Then why did you agree to talk to me?

I never did.

Yes, I have the letter right here. You said I could ask ten questions via smoke signals and those other things.

There are no other things.

Of course there are.

Then what are they?

Well, lots of things. Too many to list right now. I could never list them all.

There is nothing to be gained by accounting or recording.

Well, I have to record this interview.

Why?

So people will know what you said.

But I've said nothing.

You can say that again.

But I've said nothing.

Well, actually you've said a lot of things. It's just that most of them didn't make any sense.

I've said nothing.

Then who did?

Hello?

June 22

2 million dollars.

2 fucking million dollars.

Most of you don't know McDougal spent a soul crushing 6 years working in the cubicles of a Midwestern telecom company staring blankly at a screen and shuffling windows so his boss couldn't see his porn and chat windows. I know I know, it didn't make sense to us either at the time until it was all over and we thought, God Fucking Damn, McDougal is the smartest son of a bitch that ever lived.

It began when he read Bridges of Madison County. He cried and cried for days, then ate the intestines of a living waitress at an Outback Steakhouse. Dipped them in the orange sauce that comes with a Bloomin' Onion. Then performed a pretty amazing surgery right there on the table, took about half of his own intestines (don't forget we each have like 3 miles in us or whatever) and replaced hers with his. It was kind of a gross M.C. Escher-esque deal, because her intestines were in his being digested and ... well, you can imagine how trippy it was at the time. Anyway, he stitched her up and asked her out right then and there, still reeling from the Bridges love story. She of course said yes, they fucked, and got married 14 months later.

McDougal a married man, what a fucking shock that was to all of us! Gone were the nights of orgies in bowling alleys, hunting squid with limes and trowels, performing a capella with the Boston Pops stoned on opium soaked in owl's blood. instead we found ourselves having pot lucks with new friends from the tennis club, knitting sweaters for rape victims, playing castanets with Steve Buschemi. At the time it happened so slowly as to be imperceptible, we spouted cliches about getting older, we tapped our feet to "The Boys are Back in Town" and had wistful thoughts of Bruce Springsteen sitting on the edge of the reservoir strumming a 6 string and whispering about the passing of youth. Next thing you know McDougal doesn't call me back for weeks, I get married to a set of hot twins who won't let me do it doggy style with either of them ever, and gray hairs start arriving in my beard like unwelcome whores in your mother's church.

Then June 22nd came along.

I woke up, drunk as usual and called in sick to work. I was president of something or other, some phone company or captain of a fleet of ships maybe. Anyway, I called in and was laying there wondering who was going to be on Dr. Phil, when I just had this feeling, you know? I thought, fuck, what is McDougal doing right this second. I decided not to call and warn him, I just piled into my 2009 Ferrari and drove the 600 miles to Bowling Green. I roared up to his office building and took the elevator to every floor until I saw him. Hunched over, pale and pasty from the flourescent tubes that were his only solar nurishment, and obviously hiding a huge erection in his pants. I quietly walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder and did my best boss imitation. "McDougal, what is that you have on your screen there" and he turned around and killed me.

Killed me fucking dead as shit, right there. He smashed my face in with a keyboard, I was dead within 10 seconds. He realized pretty quick who I was and what he had inadvertently done, and he immediately yelled "Saddam Hussein!" and everyone came and gutted me and hung me up on a pole and yelled at media cameras and it was broadcast around the world. He got a 2 million dollar reward for killing me, and took that and travelled the world for 4 years with the sole mission of laying a woman of every nationality and ethnicity before setting foot back into Bowling Green.

This of course explains his deal today, as he did not fully realize the overwhelming number of nationalities and ethnicities in the world before setting out. At some point he felt bad for me and brought me back to life; he did something with aloe vera and a pumpkin. Anyway, that was somewhere around Tibet, and we're still on his mission today. I look back on June 22nd and wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't have gotten out of bed, showered, had both of my wives biblically, and driven to find McDougal. Then I snort paprika off the neck of whatever llama or whale I'm riding and look up and the moon and smile, thankful for McDougal and his endless supply of cash.

Pussy

McDougal stole my cat and smuggled it aboard an Argentinean freighter bound for Morocco.

The cat died en route and McDougal brought him back to life with an alternator from a 1978 Chevy Nova, a TI-99/4A with a voice synthesizer and a holographic picture of a Yorkie Terrier.

When the vessel arrived in Morocco, McDougal presented the resurrected cat to the king of Amsterdam, who in exchange freed McDougal's commonlaw wife from the secret Moroccan dungeon, where he'd kept her locked away for nearly 16 years.

When she emerged, she'd grown a full Oak Ridge Boys beard, and was wearing only a leather thong and an Ocean Pacific half shirt.

McDougal immediately shit his pants, took back my cat, and flew straight back to the states.

When he landed on my front lawn, I said, "McDougal -- I didn't know you could fly."

Well, neither did McDougal.

And I still have that damned cat.

Nuts

I was married to McDougal for seven years before I realized he was a man. When I confronted hm about it, he ripped off three of my testicles and one of my fingers ... or ... wait ... three of my fingers and one of my testicles ... or tentacles -- for who am I if not a fish?

McDougal's not gay. We never consumated our relationship. He just needed Spanish citizenship for a while. I felt so used when he ended it. We still talk every couple of months, but now he's cold and aloof, and I wonder ... I wonder ... where the fuck are my three testicles?

McDougal Fast Facts

• No wife; no children; three wet nurses on permanent staff.


• Has fully functional gills under his arms.


• Stormed the beach at Normandy, killing 84 Germans with an M-1 rifle ... in 1975.


• In Monopoly, always picks the flat iron.


• Once married Martha Plimpton on a dare. Divorced her on a double dare. Ruined her career on a whim.

My Wife

McDougal showed up at my house late one night -- drunk as a skunk.

He says to me, "I'm here for some pussy." Then he woke up my wife and had his way with her.

Then he crapped in my pantry, and guess who had to clean it up?

That's right -- my wife.

Bass Boat

McDougal borrowed my bass boat, took it out and caught the biggest catfish in Oklahoma state history. Got his picture in the paper.

Then my boat was seized in a crystal meth sting operation that McDougal ends up pinning on me. I went to jail for 8 years.

When I get out, McDougal's married my wife, moved into my house, and my kids call him dad. But I couldn't be mad. Little Billy was on the honor roll, my wife had dropped 40 pounds, and I'd never seend McDougal happier.

He gave me $11,000. He said that was for my troubles. I used the money to actually start a meth lab and turned that 11 grand into a small fortune of nearly 270 thousand dollars.

Long live McDougal!

The Roomba

McDougal invented the Roomba at a Super Bowl party back in '87. He called it the Soulsucker Seven after his wife at the time. The number 7 because he was in his early twenties (this is where the story gets hazy). He claimed to have an advanced robotics degree from the local 4H club, but I couldn't help but notice the device was crafted from a tape dispenser, shaved meat, and the cowl intake off a 71 Cuda. Is was loud as hell, but the thing worked.

Mrs. McDougal

Let me see a show of hands, who was at McDougal's wedding? You? You? OK, yeah I remember you, and you. Well, for the couple of dozen of you that weren't there let me try to set the scene:

We were all strapped into a line of Ford Fairlanes and getting the mandatory tattoos ("Mr. and Mrs. Motherfucking McDougal") around the circumference of our necks, and the wedding was supposed to be in one hour. McDougal is trying to follow the rule about not seeing his wife before the wedding, so he's smoking a mixture of crack and Applebee's Onion Rings, and he was beating the shit out of anyone within about 40 feet of him. So everyone's kind of hunkered down in their Fairlanes.

At some point I'm hitting a nitrous balloon pretty heavy to ease the pain of the neck tattoo, when all of a sudden McDougal lunges up and shouts to the Devil. I mean To the Devil, because the Man in Red is standing right there, fashioning a Ford Fairlane of his own out of charred souls and licking flames. The Devil looks up, sees how fucked up McDougal is, shrugs and looks at us the way you look at a man who's hotass wife is so drunk she's rubbing your cock with her foot under the table, and puts his arm around McDougal.

"McDougal," he vomits, "you got another thing coming if you think you can marry my sister without a bachelor party from The Prince of Flames," and all of a sudden the entire wedding party, tuxes and all, magically appear in a shitty shake joint in south Philly.

McDougal is too fucked up to notice, and everyone at the church (now about 6,000 miles away from where we all are) is too wrapped up in Mozart's Andante Cantabile to notice we've all disappeared. Next thing I know, I see that crazy son of a bitch (McDougal, not the Devil)* eating two Philadelphia roofers alive. They are screaming and blood is everywhere, and I'm just completely speechless. Not that I hadn't seen McDougal eat people before, I'm just seeing the mess all over his tux and thinking about showtime at that church in less than an hour.

So I'm thinking, "no way McDougal's gonna pull through on this one, this time he's really done it." We spend about another 45 minutes watching fat shaved Philly girls strut their stuff, and McD finishes off the roofers and passes out on the stage.

Now the Big Man is laid out in his own puke, and the Devil's brothers-in-law are laughing at him in a way that makes me uneasy. This wakes him up out of his stupor, I see his eyes lock as he realizes the enormity of the situation, and he jumps up and sacrifices them and a bouncer to the Prehistoric Nordic God Ba:äl which gets us all a free ticket back to the church with 2 minutes to spare.

When the music shifts and we hear our cue, I whisper to him, "McD, your tux!" and he looks down and sees all the blood.

And you know what that crazy fucker does? Strips me naked, throws me out into the crowd as a diversion, marries that hellbitch wife of his before anyone sees it, and plants a goddamned fig tree in the middle of Monroe, Alabama. And that fig tree is there to this day, still putting out figs.

* the Devil was actually glued to his cell phone half the night dealing with some new "pod installation" or some horseshit down in Hell over the weekend; I was pretty disappointed after all the shit I had heard about the guy.

McDougal's Wrath

I'll tell you the maddest I ever saw McDougal. The day he got out of prison, a Tuesday, first thing he does is pick me up from work in a stolen front-end loader. We cruise down the road smokin a leftover prison doobie, when all of a sudden he turns down the Ani DiFranco.

"You been fucking my wife?" he asks, well, not really asks as much as spits through a mouthful of McDonalds Apple Pie, "Rat Jimmy told me that's what you did all the time I was up in Pine Hills."

So I hand him over about $30k (Canadian) and beg for my life.

He whipped the front-end loader over to the side of the road and pulled me out and set me on the guardrail. He had a Prussian dagger in one hand and a pack of Kamel Reds in the other.

"You tell me one thing," he said, "when a whale gives birth," he was pretty much crying at this point and his knuckles were cutting straight through the muscles in my shoulders, "tell me they don't come up out of the water. Tell me they don't come up out of the water."

So I did, and he said ok, and we drove on back to his house, running over three animals and a track team on the way. I was scared, sure, but I'll tell you we both learned a little something that day.