'I won't,' said the burly fellow. 'This is a secure area; you will have to be frisked.'
'Outrageous,' said Jack.
'Please yourself,' said the burly fellow. 'Goodbye then and leave me with your tickets, I can always sell them on.'
'Frisk away then, if you must,' said Jack. 'But no funny business around my trouser regions.'
The big burly fellow commenced with the frisking of Jack. He did a very thorough job of frisking - far too thorough, in Jack's opinion. Especially about the trouser regions. He turned all of Jack's pockets inside out, then finally said, 'All right. Go through.'
Jack went through.
The burly fellow frisked Eddie too.
Then Eddie followed Jack.
Once within the studio lobby area, Jack began frantically patting at himself.
'What are you up too?' Eddie asked.
'The Maguffm,' said Jack. 'Where's the Maguffin?'
Eddie produced the Maguffin. 'I have it here,' he said.
'But how?'
'I thought it might arouse suspicion, so I lifted it from your pocket.'
'But once again, how?'
'It's a knack. Here, stick it back in your pocket.'
Jack took the Maguffin from Eddie's paws. 'But he frisked you too,' said Jack. 'Where did you hide it?'
'You really don't want to know.'
'No,' said Jack, pocketing the Maguffm. 'I don't think I do.'
The studio's lobby was a swank affair. Its walls and ceiling and floor were all patterned with colourful mosaics. Jack wondered at the craftsmanship, and wondered what it all must have cost. It must have cost plenty, was his conclusion.
The colourful walls were further coloured by numerous painted portraits. Jack rightly assumed these to be of prominent Toy City TV personalities. He perused them with interest. Many were of impossibly glamorous dollies with preposterously inflated bosoms and very big hair.
So big, in fact, as to be veritable jungles.
The faces which peeped forth amidst all this big hair had the looks about them of jungle clearings, which kept the encroaching follicular foliage at bay only through the medium of extreme cosmetic cultivation. As studies in the overuse of make-up, these were nonpareil.
Jack found the faces fascinating. These were idealised images of supposed feminine beauty. Features were exaggerated, increased or diminished; the eyes and mouths were much too large, the noses all far too small.
But for the dolly portraits, no other toys were pictured. All the rest were of Jack's race: men.
These either struck noble poses or grinned winningly, according to the public image they wished to project.
Eddie looked up at Jack, then further up at the portraits, then once more at Jack. 'Your thoughts?' Eddie asked.
'Probably much the same as yours,' said Jack. 'And would I be right in assuming that there are no teddy stars on Toy City TV?'
'No,' said the bear. 'Just men and dollies. And look at those dollies, Jack. Disgusting.'
'Disgusting?’ Jack asked.
'Well, you don't think that those are their real bosoms, do you?' Eddie beckoned Jack and Jack leaned down to Eddie.
'Fake,' Eddie whispered into Jack's ear. 'They're made of rubber.'
Jack straightened up and shook his head. He had no comment to make.
'So,' said Jack. 'What do we do now? Do you want me to bluff and bluster my way into Little Tommy Tucker's dressing room, so you can have a few words with him?'
'Let's do it after the show.'
'Why after? Why not before?'
'I was thinking that perhaps he might not be too keen to speak to us. It might even be necessary for you to rough him up a bit.'
'What?' said Jack.
'We need information,' said Eddie. 'Any information. So we might have to, you know, lean on him a little. And things might get ugly and he might call for his security men and we might get thrown out of the building. And then we'd not get to see the show.'
'Makes perfect sense,' said Jack. 'Let's push into the studio and get a seat at the front.' Jack's stomach rumbled. 'What about some food?' he asked.
'Exert a little self-control,' said Eddie. 'We're professionals, aren't we?'
'We certainly are.'
It is a fact well known to those who know it well, and indeed to anyone else who has ever been dumb enough to apply for tickets to a TV show, that the interior of TV studios, the very interior, the sanctum sanctorum, the heart of hearts, the belly of the beast, the studio proper, is a real disappointment, when you've finished queuing up and finally get to see it.
It's rubbish.
The audience seating is rubbish. It's Spartan, it's uncomfortable, it's crummy. The stage set is rubbish. It's cardboard and ply-wood and not well painted at all. And there're wires everywhere. And there are cameras that get in your way so you can't see properly. And there are rude crew persons who behave like pigs and herd you in and bully you about and who won't let you get up during the show, even if you desperately need the toilet. And it always smells rough in there too, as if some orgy or other has just been going on -which tends to make the disappointment you feel even worse, because you know you must have just missed it.
And the other thing is that the show is never the way you see it on TV. The show always goes wrong and there has to be take after take after take. And although for the audience this does have a certain novelty value to begin with, by the tenth retake the novelty has well and truly worn off.
There is nothing glamorous about TV studios. Absolutely nothing glamorous at all. They're rubbish. They are. Rubbish.
'Isn't this brilliant?' said Eddie.
'Certainly is,' said Jack.
As they were the first into the studio, they were 'escorted' to the very front seats by one of the 'crew'.
A crew pig in fact. All bendy rubber and portly and scowling, he had the word CREW painted in large letters across his belly. He huffed and puffed in a bad-tempered manner and jostled Jack and Eddie along.
'Sit there,' he ordered.
Jack and Eddie hastened to oblige. The seating was toy-sized and Jack found his knees once again up around his shoulders. But he didn't care. He was loving it all.
Jack sniffed the air. 'You can even smell the glamour,' he said.
'I can definitely smell something,' said Eddie.
More rude crew pigs were now herding the rest of the audience in.
Jack looked all around and about. Overhead hung many stage lights. To the rear of each was attached a sort of half-bicycle affair: the rear half, with pedals, chain wheel and seat. And upon each seat sat a clockwork cyclist, whose job it was to pedal away like fury to power up the light and move it this way and that when required so to.
The instructions for the requiring so to do were issued from a booth set directly above the stage: the controller's box. The controller already sat in his seat of control. Evidently purpose-built for this role, he was undoubtedly the most remarkable toy Jack had so far seen. He was big and broad and constructed from bendy rubber. His wide, flat face had six separate mouths set into a horizontal row. From his ample torso sprouted six separate arms, each hand of which held a megaphone. As Jack looked on in awe, the controller bawled separate instructions through four different megaphones. Clockwork cyclists to the right and left and the above of Jack pedalled furiously away and swung their lights here and there at the controller's directing.
The lights swept over the low stage beneath the controller's box.
The stage set resembled a woodland arbour, painted plywood trees, a blue sky daubed to the rear, with the words Tuff it on the Tuffet painted upon it in large and glittering golden letters. The floor of the stage was carpeted with fake grass, on which stood a number of stools fashioned to resemble tuffets and arranged in a semi-circle. To the right of the stage was a small clockwork orchestra.