The Story of Mr. Schneider

by Melhi

from an email of Melhi's to the Mailing List:

es, kiddies, Mr. Schneider's tale is a sad one indeed. A story of a tree gone bad as a result of the horrors of his childhood. As a young sapling, Mr. S watched as his father was killed to make way for a parking lot. Being the oldest, Mr. S became a Kindergarten drop-out to support his mother and her latest brood of acorns. He worked in a department store, posing as kindling in the display model of a cheaply made fake fireplace. After a year or so, he was no longer small enough to fit inside the display and was fired.

Luckily, it was raining and when Mr. S rushed into the street, screaming in agony... the fire was put out immediately.

From there, Mr. S. went to work as a balance beam at the gymnastics school two doors over from the department store. The damage to his self esteem was deeply engrained by the time he quit, vowing never to let anyone walk on him, again. He was suddenly unruly... in bad need of a pruning and was thus, un-hireable. This threw the Schneider family into a tailspin. His mother did what she had to do and Mr. S learned about the birds and the bees the hard way.

It was at the tender age of 10 that Mr. S could stand no more and left home... as if the pollination-for-hire hadn't been enough, he'd made a horrible discovery. His mother had been selling her acorns to squirrels... and every sapling knows what squirrels do with acorns. He fled for his very life.

Mr. S wandered aimlessly for awhile, drifting from park to park... but, the landscaping was always neatly planned and there just didn't seem to be a place for him in any of them. He spent the remainder of his youth in a ditch on the edge of town, in the company of some rather ugly scrub trees. It was the only time in his life that Mr. Schneider ever truly felt accepted.

One morning, toward the end of his teens, Mr. S awoke to the sound of chainsaws. He cringed in terror, unable to flee. He tried to scream as the chain cut deep into his trunk spilling his warm sap out over the ground... all that came out was a muffled cliche... "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree." As the memories of his father's murder played back in his mind, he was thrown into a truck to be hauled to the city dump, next door.

Luckily for Mr. S, kindly old Gepetto Rafelson happened along just about then. He saw something in Mr. S that no one else had seen. He took the tree home and went to work, carving out the visage we've all come to know and love. Unfortunately, old Gepetto loved Mr. S a lot more than he should have. (Naughty naughty old Gepetto-- shame shame.)

Eventually, Mr. S was rescued by a distant relative of Gepetto who'd happened upon some rather disturbing pictures and films. This relative was Bob Rafelson. He immediately cast Mr. S in the role of the dummy, promising him fame and fortune ... then, yanked the part away from him -- giving it, instead, to a young Peter Tork. Bob did provide Mr. S with a bit part as the little seen or heard from room-mate and advisor to the band, but this set-back weighed heavy on Mr. S from the very beginning.

After the endless rejection the Monkees offered him (not one of the songs he wrote was ever recorded and he had 50% fewer fan-mails than the hated landlord) the cancellation of the series came as a relief and Mr. S drifted into the hazy world of insecticides and fertilizers, enjoying the company of many an underage sapling. It is said that even Wool-hat's legendary bleach parties were nothing compared to the last Agent Orange bash at the Schneider shack.

In and out of detox for a decade, Mr. Schneider made several attempts to jump start his career, trying out for parts with the Muppets, Alf etc... Micky once hired him for a Spitting Image episode... but alas, Mr. Schneider was hopped up on tomato dust and Micky had no choice but to fire him on the set.

After that, Mr. S embarked on a life of crime to support his habits-- most notable among his crimes was the use of the hollow trunk of an indebted friend by Mr. S and his co-horts. He and the elves operated a money laundering enterprise under the guise of a cookie factory. Oddly enough, it was Deathy Mouse who turned him in for that. (Actually, it was for not having any actual cookies in an alleged elfin cookie factory and advertizing magic under false pretenses or some such nonsense which the mouse rambled on about ad nauseum, but the investigation was fruitful and snoosed out the money laundering operation.)

Few will forget the televised trial wherein Mr S. made his famous sympathy ploy to the jury, saying "I only wanted to be a real live boy" or the over-zealous environmentalists who sent up cries for his release. His conviction set off riots in several national forests and tree lined neighborhoods causing many conservation officers to quit their jobs rather than venture into the riot torn areas. For seven straight days, it seemed no one was safe from falling pinecones, acorns, walnuts, helicopters (although no one really seemed to mind being hit by whirling maple seeds) or dripping sap. Then, just as quickly as he had appeared on the national tabloid scene, he disappeared into the prison system.

Mr. S was last seen (by approximately 2,000,000 disgruntled unemployed viewers) playing with matches during a prison-yard interview on the Geraldo show. He said he was about as happy as he had ever been... which isn't saying much.

Or I could be thinking of someone else, entirely.