"Say kids, d-did you know that each planet has a different grav-v-vity, the force that pulls you down?" Gerbert Gerbil told the audience in the midst of a show at the restaurant.
There was a pause for any response from the children. "Boy, gravity sure is strange on our travels through the cosmos." Hippo Don chuckled. "Isn't that right, Fuchsia?"
The flamingo mascot was meant to respond at this point of the stage show. Instead of her prerecorded line, there was just a buzzing error sound.
"You said it," Moolia said at the designated time, the show routine oblivious to Fuchsia's missing line. "Why, on some planets gravity is so weak you can bound into the air!"
At this point of the show Fuchsia was meant to unfurl her neck and limbs to their full length, to simulate loose gravity. Instead the Fuchsia animatronic contorted, the articulated parts scrunching together past the limit they were supposed to compact. Odd, grinding clicking could be heard from the strain of her motors.
"And on other p-planets, grav-vity is so strong that it-t squeezes you d-down." Gerbert continued. Yet again Fuchsia did the exact opposite, like a released spring her neck bounding up and lolling to one side, her magnificent beak unhinging in an unnatural way.
"Boo!" cried some of the kids in the audience, less than impressed. A few laughed.
"Gravity sounds like a great way to lose weight," Hippo Don joked. "I just have to go to a planet where I would weigh less!"
"B-But your mass doesn't change, Hippo Don," Gerbert chided. "Your w-w-weight is determined by gravity's pull on your mass. You can g-gain or loose mass all the s-s-s-same."
"Shucks!" Hippo Don exclaimed. "Oh well, how about a jam then?"
What followed was an embarrassment to animatronic musical entertainment. Fuchsia was meant to factor into a song to teach kids both about gravity and managing their own 'mass.' Given her difficulties during the show, her lyrics were all choppy and mistimed, if they hit the mark of her fellow performers. The jaunty tune from the other main members of the Cosmic Crew was almost drowned out by Fuchsia's breakdown, beak unhinging all the worse as it flapped about. Her fiber optic feathers went through the entire color spectrum in a random pattern, white to yellow to her namesake fuchsia to green to blue back to white black red orange purple and so forth.
"C-Come back soon for another Cosmic Crew show!" Gerbert waved at the end of the song, the animatronics falling back as the curtain closed. A show that was going to be postponed, the delay coming from some routine that didn't feature Fuchsia heavily was looked for in the programming. Meanwhile kids chided the breakdowns and stupid nature of Fuchsia's performance.
Such was a common occurrence to the most ambitiously built animatronic, prone to the most glitches.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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