The camera zooms in in a confident male/female duo, wearing modestly bold TV news anchor-type suits, as graphics fly onto the screen (with little electronic zooming sounds) identifying them as Skip Richmond and Karen Lane, Newschannel 5 morning reporters!
"Hello St. Metro, and welcome to the Newschannel 5 at six, I'm Skip Richmond!"
"And I'm Karen Lane, we have a lot of news to cover for you this morning, so let's get to it."
The camera focuses in on just Skip and he hesitates with a feigned serious look on his face. "Today we have breaking news for you!" he says as he straightens his stack of papers with authority. "It looks like the entire town of Hell, Michigan is engulfed in flames! Firefighters have given up the fight as all their efforts to put out the blaze have totally and completely failed. A reporter from our affiliate up there, Dick Owens, is on the scene..."
A reporter appears, a young blonde man gripping a microphone, a strained look on his face, as a huge fire blazes behind him.
"Yes, it appears that all efforts of the firefighters have done absolutely nothing to stop this blaze and at about 3 o'clock this morning they gave up, leaving Hell, Michigan to burn itself right off of the map. It is no more."
"So they tried everything?" Skip says with burning faux concern. "Water... umm...?"
"I believe they tried everything but urinating on it," Dick says, "obviously, to no avail! Oddly enough, though, even though the town's been considered a total loss, there are actually individuals moving in to the town!"
A grotesque-looking red winged creature swoops in over Dick's head and heads into the flames.
"Who are they?" Karen asks.
"Well, authorities are not sure at this point, but there is speculation that they are Satan's minions, demons of some sort," Dick replies. "They believe this could be an effort to create a literal Hell on Earth, the town an obvious choice because of its name, but this cannot be confirmed at this time!"
"All right, thanks Dick, keep us posted!" Skip says. An instant before Dick disappears from the screen you see his pants catch on fire.
"In other news today," says Karen as the camera focuses on her, "President Lucifer has signed the bill into Law that officially makes tomorrow, November 26th, National Behead a Friend Day." There's footage of a smiling, extremely good-looking chisel-jawed man happily signing a piece of paper at his Presidential office. "Lawmakers who had opposed the bill had complained that this could promote mass murder. All of them have since been beheaded."
"Yes, that has been quite a hot topic lately, Karen," Skip says, really pouring on the insincere sincerity, "and speaking of hot... it sure has been a scorcher hasn't it, Mike?"
The camera pans over to the right to include a dark-haired young man in the shot along with Skip and Karen. A graphic whooshes onto the screen below him identifying him as "Mike Pruit, Weather Reporter."
"Yes," says Mike, half-smiling, as the shot switches to just his face, "it sure has been unseasonably hot for this time of year. Your high today is going to top 120 degrees, shattering the previous record for November 25th of 78 degrees, set in 1995. But that's not all that is going on. We have some precipitation to tell you about..." A graphic flies in from the right side of the screen, showing animated clouds with red droplets coming out of it, above the high temperature, 120. "...there is a 75% chance that it will rain blood today, ranging from just some sprinkles to significant storms as that warm front moves in, so don't forget those umbrellas on your way out the door, it is going to be quite a wet one."
Suddenly the scene shifts to show a quasi satellite-photo, CGI-kindasorta map of the area, showing dark clouds coming in from the other direction the red clouds are coming in from. Mike strides in, his hand over the dark clouds. "And if that isn't enough, we've also been following this storm of locusts that has been sweeping across the countryside, decimating everything in its path, and it looks like it's headed straight for us. So, please, take your pets inside, they aren't eating just the crops and the grass. And the leaves. And the trees. And the bushes." The five-day forecast graphic whooshes into the screen. "And here is a look at your work week here. As you can see, we are predicting the searing heat, blood rain and that locust storm pretty much all week. We think it'll taper off by the weekend, though, where we expect temperatures to be milder, down into the 110s, with the locusts and the blood rain finally moving on through."
"Ah, great, looks like we have a nice weekend to look forward to," says Karen as the shot switches to include her. "We've been kind of blaming you for all this, Mike!" She then lets out a painfully obvious fake chuckle.
"Well just wait until next week," Mike says, "we think there may be some more feces showers on the way. But we'll keep ya posted!"
"Aww man, we just got done cleaning up after that last one," sighs Karen.
"Thanks, Mike, keep us posted," says Skip as he returns to the screen. "And now let's take a look at your morning commute with Newschannel 5's traffic reporter, Teresa Gibbons!"
"Well we've got problems on the roads this morning to tell you about," says a tall, attractive blonde woman in a red suit standing next to a shot of a sea of early morning headlights on a highway. "First of all there is a 20-car accident on I-70 eastbound and this has that highway completely shut down. Only maniacs driving on the shoulder and-or the median, or driving east in the westbound lanes, are getting through. Crews are working to clear this accident for you, but most of them are zombies and therefore moving quite slowly, of course as you might expect they are stopping to eat the brains of any survivors, so they could be at this quite a while.
"Also, things are not looking good on Westbound 70, traffic coming in from the east side, as a mass suicide is blocking all but the far left lane there. Hundreds of commuters have stopped to attach hoses to their exhaust pipes and run them into their cabins. So traffic coming into St. Metro both directions is already a snarl this morning. And the blood rain that has already started to fall, as Mike pointed out earlier, is causing some problems, causing numerous accidents on the side streets. Let's go to our Eye in the Sky now, Dave Davis in the Newschannel 5 Traffic Coptor."
As the screen changes to show nothing but an ariel view of a completely clogged highway, the familiar whirring sound of a helicoptor can be heard. A slightly muffled, gruff voice comes on. "Traffic. Bad!"
"Does it show any signs of clearing?" Teresa's voice asks.
The helicoptor keeps whirring.
"Dave?"
"Traffic." says Dave's voice.
....
"Bad." says Dave voice.
"OoooKay," Teresa says as she returns to the screen, "it, uh, looks like Dave is a zombie now. Looks like we'll have to get another Eye in the Sky reporter now, unfortunately. So yes, to sum up, as Dave astutely pointed out, traffic is indeed bad this morning. Back to you, Skip and Karen!"
"Thanks, Teresa," says Skip, his smoldering insincerity reaching epic levels, "be careful out on the roads today folks!"
The screen switches to Karen, who is fidgeting with a noose around her neck. When she realizes the camera is on her she quickly lets it fall loose and grabs the papers in front of her. "Um, in politics today, former President Barack Obama, who as you know is the only incumbent Presidental candidate in history to win the popular vote by 10 million votes but somehow lose the election anyway, has died. Hellhounds attacked him on the steps of a courthouse in Washington, D.C. yesterday afternoon as he was on his way in to try to sue again for a recount. They completely consumed him in less than two minutes. Memorials are scheduled to be held for him in Illinois, where he was a senator, and in Hawaii where he was born. All mourners in attendance at both are expected to be attacked and devoured by the Hellhounds as well."
"A tragic, tragic end to a great life," Skip says, the burning insincerity in his eyes getting stupidly ridiculous, "well, in world news today, France is still recovering from Paris completely melting into a gelatinous goo last week." The shot switches to footage of some French people crying and whatnot, a large mass of gelatinous goo behind them, a pointy pile of it looks like it could be the remains of the Eiffel Tower. "This happens as Rome has begun to melt into the same fate. The Pope, in a joint press statement including all of the world's major religions as well as Catholicism (excepting the Mormon church) says, quote
'We give up!'
"End quote.
"And speaking of the Mormons, since that press release, all of them have been beaten to death by Chuck Norris."
"Shocking, all of it," Karen says flatly.
"Looks like we don't have Paris anymore, Karen," says Skip, smiling. They both let out fake chuckles.
"Skip I'm gonna slap you," says Karen. Both chuckle some more. Then Karen gets serious.
"Well, in our look at sports this morning, we were all hoping for some good news for a change," says Karen as she returns to the screen. "But not so, I hear, Randy."
The camera pans over to include Randy Reynolds, the chocolate-skinned morning sport reporter. "No, I'm afraid not. During yesterday afternoon's football game, the St. Metro Bargers were in action at home against the New England Patriots." Footage of the Bargers' entire offensive line being tackled comes on the screen. "In the fourth quarter, with the Pats up 95-3, a pit to Hell opened up on the field, swallowing every member of both teams. The NFL called the game for the Pats in lieu of the lopsided score. Both teams are expected to bring up all of their prospects to play the rest of the year.
"In hockey, the Saxophones were in action against the Sabres in Buffalo." Footage of a hockey game appears, a happy guy in a blue and white uniform celebrating a goal. "They won 6-4 in overtime. But then the ice suddenly melted during the post game celebration and both teams were attacked by some Hellsharks. Their prospects will also all be brought up."
"In even more sad news, Major League Baseball is not expected to resume this spring. League officials have cited that most of the players are either dead or undead or in hiding. And that's the look at sports!"
"All right, we have to break now, but when we come back," Skip says as the camera returns to him, his brows as furrowed as they can possibly get, his eyes almost crossing, "we'll have more traffic and weather as well as some Thanksgiving recipe tips. Everybody this year is looking for the perfect way to cook brains this year and our Home & Garden reporter Sarah Jones will have that for you..."
Right before it fades to black Karen slaps Skip in the face. Very hard.