“Happy Fun Ba’al”

FADE IN: 

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

An ordinary suburban living room.

A medium-sized box sits on the table.

JAMES (6) laughs offscreen.

HAROLD (late 20s) enters.

HAROLD

Just one second, James!

ANNE (late 20s) joins him.

ANNE

That just arrived from ebay.

HAROLD

It’s here!

Harold opens the box up to reveal --

ANNE

A Happy Fun Ball?

HAROLD

Don’t you remember? Back in ’91, every kid had one of these!

Harold gets it loose from the packaging and plays with it.

ANNE

You are not letting our son play with that.

HAROLD

It’s fun!

ANNE

It caused cancer.

HAROLD

Sure, in rats, but --

Anne fishes an instruction manual out of the packaging and flips through it.

ANNE

Wasn’t this the ball that could get lodged in your head?

HAROLD

Only if you dropped it off a building or something!

Anne reads from the manual --

ANNE

“If using Happy Fun Ball for extended periods, a bell may sound, signaling the aperture of a portal to a Hell dimension.” How do I look Reverend Jeffries in the eye if James does that?

HAROLD

They probably just made that up.

ANNE

It’s an “explosion risk?”

HAROLD

I’ll tell James it’s very important not to set Happy Fun Ball on fire.

ANNE

I won’t endanger our son just because all the kids had this when we were growing up.

HAROLD

But... I never got to have one.

Puppy eyes. Anne melts.

ANNE

Oh no!

HAROLD

Look, James is a careful kid. He’ll be okay.

ANNE

All right, but if anything goes wrong --

HAROLD

-- I’ll take care of it. Hey James!

He throws the ball offscreen.

JAMES (O.S.)

Wow! This is great!

A BELL SOUNDS.

The room darkens.

Wind and lightning fill the room.

A DEEP GROWL is heard.

JAMES (O.S.)

Aaah, it’s eating my soul!

ANNE

Harold?

HAROLD

Got it.

He exits.

STILL FRAME

The old promo image of the Happy Fun Ball.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

Happy Fun Ball! It’s fun in any dimension!

More GROWLING.

FADE TO BLACK.