Viral

CHRISTIAN
I’m not sure if you knew this, but BU Tonight is not only shown here on BUTV. We also put up clips of sketches and interviews on Youtube. We’ve had some success, but we’ve found that we’re much less popular than videos of kids on student-run television programs completely screwing up and embarrassing themselves. So we’re going to try to one-up all of them with our own embarrassing screw-up, and for that we’ve brought in one of our camera operators, Nick. How’re you doing over there, Nick?

NICK
(sitting at a desk, shivering, sweating)
Uh—

CHRISTIAN
Great. Now Nick, have you ever been on camera before?

NICK
N—no.

CHRISTIAN
But you have always wanted to be on TV, right?

NICK
No, I begged you to choose someone else for this segment.

CHRISTIAN
Oh yeah, now I remember. But we chose you for your charisma, correct?

NICK
Uh—that’s doubtful—because I’ve been diagnosed with severe social anxiety and I’m afraid of bright lights. And you as well.

CHRISTIAN
Right, right. But you’ve got a prescription to take care of all that, right?

NICK
I did until you stole all my pills and fed them to ducks.

CHRISTIAN
All right, this should work out splendidly. OK, Nick, how about you just narrate this package of sports clips. Just read off the teleprompter there.

NICK
(stilted, awkward, over some generic sports clips)
Oh, um. Well here’s Brendan Johnson going up for the dunk. And he does it. And now here’s a—golfer, what a putt here. Right in. And now we move—wait, uh, Christian? The teleprompter stopped working.

CHRISTIAN
What a tragedy! Just push through it.

NICK
(over clips which become increasingly absurd and flash by too quickly to narrate)
Oh, uh—well that’s a hockey player. And—oh, now a sailboat. And is that? Oh, I don’t know what that is. There’s a lizard. Wait, stop the—thing, I don’t think I can do this.

CHRISTIAN
Well that didn’t really work, did it.

NICK
The teleprompter broke.

CHRISTIAN
And yet, there was still something missing. You know, Nick, I just don’t think you were scared enough.

NICK
I disagree. Can I go?

CHRISTIAN
Well I didn’t want to have to do this, but let’s go to Phase B. You’re afraid of snakes, right Nick?

NICK
Everyone’s afraid of snakes.

CHRISTIAN
Ha ha, right you are. Bring them in.

Two STAGEHANDS enter, draping snakes around NICK.

NICK
Aaah! Aaah! NO! CHRISTIAN, PLEASE!

CHRISTIAN
Please, Nick. The screaming reflects poorly on you. Let’s roll the footage again.

The generic sports clips play again from the beginning. Cut back and forth between the clips and NICK screaming, trying to stay still so as not to upset the snakes which are draped around him.

NICK
Aaah! Aaah! Oh, God! Jesus, snakes! Someone—someone get the snakes off me! They’re—slithering! If I don’t move, maybe—oh God, this one’s showing its fangs! What does that mean? Jesus—oh, that stings! I THINK IT BIT ME! WHAT CAN IT DO? (etc.)

CHRISTIAN
Hilarious! We’ll be right back.