Power play - escalating mischief

In this snippet, Andy Griffiths starts with an absurd set up, but much of the comedy here is in the power play between the characters and how the problems escalate.

Have a read before we talk about it more.

This was not the first time Zack’s bum had run away.

Since his twelfth birthday, two months ago, Zack’s bum had made a habit of jumping off his body and running around the streets making a nuisance of itself. Zack was sick of it. So was the local bumcatcher, who had already caught and impounded it three times.

Until recently, Zack’s bum had confined itself to a variety of harmless pranks, such as attaching itself to the faces of statues and passersby. But on its last outing it had joined a pack of five hundred feral bums who had lined the emergency stopping lane of the South Eastern Freeway and mooned all the people driving to work. This stunt had caused many accidents, which the bums had thought was a great laugh. The sentencing judge, however, was not amused and placed them all on twelve months’ good behaviour bonds.

The Day My Bum Went Psycho(2001)

Bums alive!

This is more than making bottom jokes—it’s giving power to the powerless. You sit on your bum. You poop with it. You keep it covered up. It's the lowest of the body parts. And now Zack’s bum has claimed power and it's running around causing mischief. And that mischief is escalating.

So this snippet takes that power struggle and develops it, escalating the problems with new and interesting details each time. And notice how while each action is absurd, they all make sense if you buy into the set up.

For the 10th time that day, Terry Turtle cursed at Floyd.

It was only after they’d moved into the reef together that Terry discovered three facts about his mate Floyd Fish: that he knew every word to every song in The Little Mermaid, that he sung them constantly, and that he couldn’t hold a tune to save himself. It was driving him mental. So was the Disney film, which seemed to play on repeat 24/7 in their cramped coral flat.

It had started innocently enough, Floyd had sung quietly in his room, or while he was doing odd jobs. It was even kind of sweet. But one morning, when Terry wasn’t there, Floyd had belted out Under the Sea from his front door and the rest of the reef, rather than stopping him, had joined in. Terry came home to a cacophonous clan of dissonant Disney divas. What was worse was that Floyd found Terry’s torment amusing. Any protests fell on tone deaf ears. Terry couldn’t even complain to reef management as they were part of the choral choir. From that moment on, Terry began looking for a quieter corner of the reef. Or, at least, a more tuneful one.

Write a story based on the picture. Start a power play between two characters and make sure the mischief escalates! Bonus points for an absurd set up, as long as it works in the power play.

Comedy Genre (Middle Years)

Power play - escalating mischief