“Welcome back! Seventy-five percent of you paused this while streaming my show to use the bathroom, then hit the fast-forward button until the end of our last messages. You missed a pretty flower in the third commercial. For those of you distracted by your phones, this is Obviously, with Joe Smith which is obviously a pseudonym, because you think I am Captain Obvious!” He tugged at his spandex suit’s left shoulder. “I still have never said whether or not I think that is true. I might just be a guy who likes to hear it like it really is.”
The studio audience clapped respectfully.
“Everyone at home knows that a bright sign was just flashing, but thank you! It was a brash red color that I find to be pleasing. Anyway, the people seated behind these cameras waited much longer for the show to continue.” A different light flashed. Overhead microphones picked up modest live studio laughter.
“Tonight – special aside to my viewers watching live; you should probably get more sleep – we welcome a famous chef who hasn’t been inside their own restaurant’s kitchen in three years, and a musical guest you might remember from last Summer, back with a very late, contractually obligated, new single. But first, I sit here while an actor, who some of you would bother in a hospital cafeteria for a selfie, walks out and waves. This guy was given the name James Stewart when he was born, so you know him as Greg Stewart. That’s his middle name!”
A live band swelled as an attractive man wandered out from one side of a velvet curtain. The audience clapped with more enthusiasm as he crossed the stage with his hand in the air. Greg shook hands with Joe and sat down on the left side of the sofa next to the host’s desk. “Your handlers and my producers argued over my next questions for days, as if that matters to me. Nice to see you, Greg.” Joe shifted in his leather office chair. “My suit is very tight!”
“Never a dull moment to visit with you, Captain Obvious.”
“You pretended to be someone else on my screen last night. Why do you do that so often? Is it the money?”
Greg laughed before looking out at the seated audience. He could see the green light flashing above, but no one was laughing with him. “Um, er, well, of course. I am paid well to convincingly think and react like a different person. And, we got to travel to Fiji to film this installment of the franchise.”
The captain looked dead center at Camera Two. “Almost everyone who heard you say that will never see that place for themselves. Was it nice?”
Greg placed his palms together and flexed his fingers. “I find the ocean to be a calming influence in my life.”
“The Earth’s oceans are full of things, big and small, that would likely kill you indiscriminately, largely on instinct. You could say the same for the water.”
“Well, yes, you could. But, I did not come here only to talk about For the Last Time VII, there is also…” Greg stopped speaking and looked confused, before he said, “The director keeps making these sequels to fuel his hard drug and prostitute habits.” He frowned and rubbed the left side of his forehead.
Joe chuckled and beamed a huge smile at his guest and everyone else looking at him. Television and cell phone screens across the globe all glowed a little brighter, briefly. “Sorry, my Obvious Aura is a little strong tonight. Soon we will all be in one happy society, under my rule. Please continue.”
“Muh – My charity! I am announcing a new venture seeking to help the malnourished and illiterate preschool-aged members of our communities. Launching nationwide, Kids-Eat-Books… Wow, I have never said that out loud. My brother is the one in charge of this money laundering scheme. I barely paid any attention to what he was doing, not until the private plane ride to this coast this morning. We probably could have done this interview remotely.” Greg sneezed three times into his right elbow. “Can I? Can we go to a commercial break?”
Joe reached over and patted Greg on the shoulder with a shiny silver gloved hand, leaving glitter on the black Italian silk shirt. “Of course. May I call you James? There is always time to advertise more things that my viewers don’t need.” Joe turned to smile for the cameras again. “I am powerful, but even I am an acolyte. Those dreams.” He laughed again. “Those dreams are the real reason that you continue watching. Those dreams bring us all closer together.”
Reddit WritingPrompt [WP] You’re Captain Obvious! The hero with an ability that’s considered useless as you only state the obvious….. At least it was considered useless until people realized that what may be obvious to others may not be to them. Now you have your own talk show. I am glad that the (Screen) Writer’s Strike is over this week, but I might have mixed feelings about the return of late night TV.