TEASER

FADE IN:

1 INT. TV STUDIO - BACKSTAGE

Production assistants dash anxiously back and forth, head sets in their ears, fluttering pieces of paper in their hands. Executives in business suits stride purposefully.

A door emblazoned with a big gold star opens and MORN steps out. Dressed in a smart suit, with a towel around his neck.

The moment the huge lumpen barfly emerges into this chaos, NOG dashes up to him, urgent and flustered. He’s wearing an even bigger headset stretched around his huge Ferengi head, with a clipboard in hand.

NOG
Morn, great! You’re on stage in
five. The writers came up with
some new jokes for your opening
monologue. Real topical stuff.
(hands him paper)
Here, have a quick read through.
You’re on in five. The band’s
setting up now. It looks like
we’ve got a full house. Do you
need anything?
(Morn starts
to answer)
No, save your voice. I’ll just
bring you everything. Looking
good! You’re on in five!

Nog dashes off again, leaving Morn to look blankly to the camera and shrug.

Morn walks on, turns a corner, and hears SCREAMS. A big group of adoring female FANS stand behind a velvet rope, with Lt Cmdr EVIK holding them back.

Morn approaches the fans – they SCREAM all the louder.

EVIK
Alright, now calm down, ladies.
Plenty of him to go around.

Morn waves greetings, kisses on cheeks, signs an autograph, jerks in surprise when someone grabs a handful.

Nog runs back over, more flustered than ever.

NOG
You’re on in three, big guy!

Nog hands Morn a plastic cup of water, which he knocks back quickly. Then Nog whips the towel from around Morn’s neck, pads all over the star’s enormous fleshy head with it.

Suitably prepared, Morn heads towards the stage. With him gone, Nog pads his own enormous fleshy head with the towel. Then he absently casts the sweaty towel away towards the crowd of adoring fans. They SCREAM again and fight over it.

Morn stands near a curtain. On the other side of it, we can hear the BAND tuning up, a crowd taking its seats.

VIC (o.s.)
Hey there, pallie.

VIC FONTAINE strolls up, smooth and sophisticated as ever. He pats Morn on the padded shoulder as he passes.

VIC
Sounds like they started without
me. That ain’t right!
(over shoulder
as he goes)
Break a leg, big fella!

And Vic is gone behind his own curtain. We hear the crowd CHEER louder at his appearance.

Waiting behind his curtain, Morn turns to camera and holds two thumbs up, ready to go on stage. Nog runs up one last time, grabs the paper out of Morn’s hand, takes a timepiece out of his pocket and checks it.

Then we hear Vic’s voice bellow out over the loudspeakers.

VIC (o.s.)
Ladies and gentlemen! Here he is
- the most talkative man in the
galaxy, your friend and mine...
(pause for
audience hysteria)
...Moooorn!

We hear the band burst out into a massive musical FANFARE. Nog holds out his hand in front of Morn, counts down on his fingers - three, two, one, GO.

Nog pulls back the curtain, and Morn steps into blinding STAGE LIGHTS. We follow behind him, emerging onto...

2 INT. TV STUDIO - SET (CONTINUOUS)

The lights reveal an AUDIENCE on their feet, APPLAUDING and CHEERING raucously. They include numerous familiar faces from Deep Space Nine, crew and civilians alike.

As Morn moves to the centre of the set, we gradually PAN around him, revealing...

Vic and his band at stage right. A backdrop of stars as seen through DS9-style windows. A desk on a slight angle, and a long couch for guests. It’s the perfect late-night chat show TV set, and at the centre of it, absorbing the adoration of his audience with arms wide, is Morn.

A BURST OF SPARKLES fills the screen, taking us into...

3 OPENING CREDITS

Under a boisterous big band arrangement of the usual DS9 theme music, as played by Vic’s band, we watch a whole new CREDIT SEQUENCE, made up of obviously photoshopped fake images and videos of Morn in various locations.

-- Morn dressed in a black-and-white striped shirt, beret jauntily perched on his giant head, a string of onions around his neck. He holds up a large old-fashioned camera, pointing it at the EIFFEL TOWER. With each click of the camera, a postcard-type image appears around the edge of the screen, showing Morn doing other touristy things, like getting drunk, trying to kiss the Mona Lisa, etc.

-- Dark and ominous, the KLINGON HALL OF WARRIORS looms in front of us. A gang of Klingons stand before it, bat’leths held aloft as they roar with bloodlust. At the middle of the group is Morn, dressed in Klingon armour, his own bat’leth at the ready. They all work themselves up and up, and finally, with Morn and his bat’leth leading the way, they launch off towards battle.

-- Morn sits in a mud bath, naked from the shoulders up, and as we pull back we see several nubile and equally naked RISIAN girls on either side of him, slinking sexily up to him. The background is all trees and mountains and a huge horga’hn fertility statue. One of the Risian women reaches off screen and comes back with a smaller horga’hn, passes it hopefully to Morn. Morn looks to camera and winks.

-- DEEP SPACE NINE itself, hanging among the stars. Except that Morn is on the outside, climbing up one of the docking pylons like King Kong. A tiny dabo girl is clutched in one hand, screaming and struggling. Runabouts buzz around the pylon; Morn tries to bat them away with his free hand. Eventually he loses his grip on the pylon and falls...

-- In QUARK’S BAR. Morn sits on his usual barstool, holding court at the centre of a crowd of adoring onlookers as he relates another of his hilarious and ribald tales. Behind, QUARK himself serves drinks. As Morn reaches his gut-busting punchline, and the crowd erupts in laughter, Morn turns to camera, raises his stein of beer, and TOASTS.

Over the top of this image, cursive script writes out...

DEEP SPACE NINE PRESENTS...

THE LATE SHOW! WITH MORN

FADE OUT:

END OF TEASER