(My guest and I stand over a table covered with gadgets.)
Me: Tonight we'll poke our noses into the world of espionage. With me now is Doctor Albert Quaker from MiG-17 to show us a few tools of the trade.
(Applause.)
Quaker: Q.
Me: What?
Quaker: You can call me 'Q' for short.
Me: Quaker's short enough already, isn't it?
Quaker: No, after the character from the series.
Me: Oh right. That omnipotent dude. I forgot how much you nerds love your sci-fi.
Quaker: No, the other series! About the British agent! Oh, never mind.
Me: No, I'll call you 'Q' if you want.
Quaker: That's not what I meant! Look, can we just talk about the gear?
Me: Certainly. Where shall we begin?
Quaker: Well, this is the best spy camera yet. Fits in your view-finder and has instant playback.
Me: Fits into these binoculars? Isn't that a little conspicuous? (covering my eyes with the view-finder) I get the instant playback, but all I see is a neighbour's back yard with an empty lawn chair.
Quaker: Must be a surveillance tape.
Me: And now there's a young lady coming outside to read in her two-piece bathing suit.
Quaker: I'll take that. (He snatches the gadget away and puts it back on the table.)
Me: I wasn't finished.
Quaker: We've more to look at here. For instance, what do these look like?
Me: Replacement windshield wipers?
Quaker: Precisely, but with a radically new approach to windshield maintenance.
Me: How so?
Quaker: By blowing up everything and starting over.
Me: (after a pause for thought) But if you can get in close enough to rig his car, can't you just take him out anywhere on the spot?
Quaker: Where's the car chase in that? Or the special effects?
Me: I guess you're right. What's this? (I pick up a remote control unit.)
Quaker: Hand that to me please. (I pass it to him.)
Me: What is it?
Quaker: It's a very powerful mind-ray.
Me: Get outta here!
Quaker: Don't believe me? (He aims the device and zaps me. I enter into a trance.) What if I told you you were wrong to doubt me? Would you nod your head in agreement?
(He pushes another button and I nod my head in robot-like compliance.)
Quaker: And if I said you were stupid to doubt me? Would you nod in agreement?
(My head nods helplessly.)
Quaker: Oh you would? And what if I just said you were stupid? Would you agree with that?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Commercial: The Zit Zapper
Announcer: Don't let all the laser surgery go to the doctors. Do it for yourself with the advanced Zit Zapper.
(A youth in pyjamas inspects his face closely in the mirror.)
Announcer: Why wait forever for those blemishes to turn into scars? Take aim and start turning those molehills into craters with the powerful Zit Zapper.
(He holds up the product, smiles, and runs it over his face like an electric razor. Switch to an outdoor shot for the following illustrations.)
Announcer: And the Zit Zapper has so many other uses: spelling in the snow, lighting a cigarette, even setting fire to an ant. Once you have it, you'll wonder how you ever survived without it. Get the modern, fully loaded, indispensable Zit Zapper.
(The youth puts the product in a drawer and slides it shut. His face has the distorted look of wearing a pantyhose mask. He lies down to sleep.)
Announcer: And start making impressions.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Me: My next guest is an intelligence operative who offers living proof that beauty and brains can productively co-exist. Agent Ellen Kelly!
(Applause: Enter Kelly. I greet her with a lengthy hug.)
Me: In your last assignment as a beauty contestant, who were you trying to catch?
Kelly: An electrician.
Me: An electrician? See that's what I don't get. Why didn't you pretend to be an electrician's apprentice? And when you went undercover as an exotic dancer, what was your mission?
Kelly: To stop a mad scientist from starting an earthquake.
Me: Well shouldn't you have brushed up on seismology or something? Maybe tried to get a job in his lab?
Kelly: I did get a job in his lap.
Me: No, his lab! Laboratory.
Kelly: Hey, I was just following orders.
Me: Well I don't know what they were thinking. At least when they had you filling in for that swimsuit model you were trying to catch a stalker.
Kelly: Of course. He was the only one who had the map with the locations of those nuclear missile silos.
(Commercial.)
Me: Spying is a business that runs on information, and trying to get a spy to talk is a tough job. But someone who's been getting it done for no less than the last fifteen years is Mike Lewis!
(Applause. Enter Lewis. I get up and fake a few boxing moves on my way to greet him. We shake hands and go back to our seats.)
Me: Has interrogation changed much over the years?
Lewis: Not for me. I'm traditional.
Me: That's important. We mustn't overlook time-honoured methods.
Lewis: That's exactly what I'm talking about! Time-honoured methods, like keeping them tied to a chair with their hands behind them and their mouth duck-taped until we know who they are.
Me: I guess if it's necessary at first, as long as they're not too uncomfortable.
Lewis: And we shine a stage-light in their face. We put it right up close so when they close their eyes tight, the darkest they can make their vision is orange.
Me: That sounds kind of close, but if it helps him concentrate...
Lewis: Then we roll up their sleeve and jab 'em full of truth serum.
Me: And does that make them want to talk?
Lewis: Not directly.
Me: What do you mean?
Lewis: It makes them more sensitive to pain. Then we start working them over as we ask them questions. And if they answer wrong, we haul off and b-
Me: Now just hold on a minute. Weren't you held captive in a P.O.W. camp?
Lewis: Yeah? So?
Me: So? After going through that, don't you sympathize with your prisoners?
Lewis: Not at all. I figure if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the next person.
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