The Butter Battle Book (1989) - full transcript

A tale of two hostile neighboring countries, one country is occupied by the Yooks, while the other is occupied by the Zooks. Both countries don't agree with each others ideology. Due to this issue they ended up building a wall in between the border of the two opposing cultures. The main reason they hate each other is because both cultures have a different way of buttering their bread. The Yooks eat their bread butter side up while the Zooks eat their bread butter side down. The story is told by the perspective of a Yook border patrol guard who tries to outwit a Zook name Van Itch with the latest Yooks weapon. However every time the border guard presents his weapon, Van Itch would have a weapon that is able to counter attack the Yook's weapon. This leads to an arms race with results leading to a mutual assured destruction.

On the last day of summer,

ten hours before fall...

my grandfather took me out to the Wall.

For a while we stood silent.

Then finally he said...

with a very sad shake of his very old head:

"As you know, on this side of the Wall

we are Yooks.

On the far other side of this Wall

live the Zooks.

And the things that you heard

about Zooks are all true.

That terribly horrible thing that they do.

And in every Zook house

and in every Zook town...

every Zook eats his bread...

with the butter side down!

Butter, butter, butter bright

Every morning, noon and night

Spread your bread and spread it right

Pat, pat, smear, smear

Pat, pat, smear, smear

Pat, pat

Butter side down!

But we Yooks, when we eat,

when we breakfast or supper...

we spread our bread right,

with the butter side up.

'Cause of course you remember

our bread-spreading rule...

that you learned as a lad

back in bread-spreading school.

On my honor as a Yook youth,

I do solemnly swear...

to spread up on top here,

and never down there.

"On my honor as a Yook youth...

"I do solemnly swear...

"to spread up on top here...

"and never down there".

That's the true, honest way.

And all honest folks know...

that you can't trust a Zook

who spreads bread down below.

Every Zook must be watched.

He has kinks in his soul.

That's why as a young man,

I made watching my goal.

Watching Zooks

for the Zook-Watching Border Patrol.

With a song in my heart

and a spring in my knee,

With a glint in my eye and a hup two three

I strided with pride along that Wall

and I watched those Zookers, one and all.

And if they got fresh

l just gave them a twitch

With my tough-tufted

prickly Snick-Berry Switch.

For a while that worked fine.

All the Zooks stayed away,

and our country was safe.

Then, one terrible day...

a very rude Zook by the name of VanItch...

snuck up and slingshotted

my Snick-Berry Switch.

Hooray for our side...

butter side down!

Why, those dirty upside-down butterers.

They can't do that to us.

Why, I never saw anything

so aggressively affrontable.

It's worse than that. It's acrimonious.

Those Zooks. They're impossible.

And they get impossibler and

impossibler and impossibler every day.

Ask me, they're getting too big

for their britches.

With a broken-off switch,

with my head hung in shame...

to the Chief Yookeroo

in great sorrow l came.

But our Leader iust smiled.

He said: "Dear boy,

You're not to blame.

You simply have suffered a minor defeat...

'cause your Snick-Berry Switch

is a bit obsolete.

Their slingshot's more modern.

What we need to get is a weapon...

that's even more moderner yet.

So I've ordered the Boys

in the Back Room to figure...

how to build you

some such super-booper-sling jigger.

With my Triple-Sling Jigger

I sure felt much bigger.

Okay!

I marched to the Wall

with my Triple-Sling-Jigger.

I marched to the Wall

with great vim and great vigor...

right up to VanItch

with my hand on the trigger.

"I'll have no more nonsense,"

I said with a frown,

"from Zooks who eat bread

with the butter side down!"

VanItch looked quite sickly.

He ran off quite quickly.

I'm unhappy to say

he came back the next day.

Shoot if you must

with your Triple-Sling Jigger.

But I also now have my hand on a trigger.

My defensive weapon,

the Jigger-Rock Snatchem...

will fling them right back

just as fast as we catch 'em.

We'll take no more nonsense.

We'll take no more gupp...

from you Yooks who eat bread

with the butter side up.

Stymied. Thwarted.

Mission aborted.

"I have failed, sir", I sobbed,

as I made my report...

to the Chief Yookeroo

in the headquarters fort.

"Not at all, my dear boy.

Oh, you did fine, my dear boy.

But a slingshot, dear me,

is an old-fashioned toy.

All we need is a more modern kind of gun.

My Boys in the Back Room

have already begun to think up...

a Walloping whizz-zinger of one.

They thought up a great one!

They certainly did.

They thought up a gun

called the Kick-a-Poo Kid...

which they loaded

with powerful Poo-a-Doo Powder...

and ants' eggs and bees' legs

and dried-fried clam chowder.

And they carefully trained

a real smart dog named Daniel...

to serve as our country's

first gun-toting spaniel.

Then Daniel, the Kick-a-Poo Spaniel, and I...

marched back toward the Wall

with our heads held up high.

- It's time that we bop them.

- Those monsters that dwell....

On the other side of the Wall

- They're fooky and freaky

- Kooky and sneaky!

- They're rude and crude

- They're fright fully lewd

On the other side of the Wall

- It's time that we bash them

- Dear, that's the truth

- They're ugly, unnatural

- Unkept and uncouth

- They're weird

- They're suspicious

- Obnoxious

- Atrocious

- They're rotten

- Malicious

- They're gauche and horocious

- Repugnant

- Repulsive they are

- We're refined

- They're crude

- They're nutty

They're out of their minds

- All the things they do

- They're no good!

I never have met one

But I hear that they're stinky!

On the other, other, other side

other side, that other side of the Wall

- Ready?

- Ready?

Aim.

Aim.

Shoot if you must

with your wee tiny shooter...

but the Boys in my Back Room

have rendered it neuter...

with this Eight-Nozzled

Elephant-Toted Boom-Blitz.

It shoots high-explosive

sour cherry-stone pits.

And will put your dumb Kick-a-Poo Kid

on the fritz!

Poor Daniel and I

were scared out of our witz!

Once again by the Zooks,

I was bested and beat.

Once again I limped home

from the Wall in defeat.

l was losing my gumption, losing my will...

when the Right-Side-Up Song Girls

marched over the hill.

Never give up

Never tremble or flutter

Never sad, never drab

Never stumble or stutter

Believe in yourself

and the bread that you butter

Have faith in your butter

Be stead fast and true

Remember all you've done

Depends on you

forget what has happened, my boy.

We have voted to make you a general.

You've been promoted.

Your pretty new uniform's ready. Get in it!

And next time when you go out to battle,

you'll win it.

The Boys in the Back Room

have figured out how.

Just wait till you see

what they've puttered up now.

To clobber those Zooks

in their land of bad butter...

we have builded a thing

called the Utterly Sputter.

It's a plane that's so modern

and frightfully new...

even we don't quite know

all the things it can do.

But the main thing it does

is to sprinkle Blue Goo all over the Zooks.

Happy trip. Toodle-oo.

We spread our bread the way we ought

We spread the way our mothers taught

We fought the wars that must be fought

Yook, Yook, Yook-a-loo-dah

Win we will and win we must

Our hearts are true, our course is just

Our bread is pure from crust to crust

Yook, Yook, Yook-a-loo-dah

Spreading rightly makes us free

upward Yooks and Yookaree

Spreading to eternity

Yook, Yook, Yook, Yook, Yook-a-loo-ya

Yook, Yook, Yook, Yook

Yook-a-loo, Yook-a-loo, Yook-a-loo-ya

VanItch!

How do you like my plane?

Forget it, old fellow.

You are stymied again.

Buster, that was a pretty sour flight

that you flew.

And the Chief Yookeroo,

well, he's looking for you.

To make the world's

most mighty weapon

you take a mess of mook-a-hoo

And you twaddle it and you waddle it a bit

That's what you do

Mow, this sly, unstable substance

dug from deep beneath the land

contains grand evil powers

that we scarcely understand

And when it starts to burp and bubble

you can press it in the scrubs

That precipitates the bluggins

and activates the glocks

And then you squeeze it till it's squizzen

Then you squeeze it even tighter

'Cause the tighter that it's squizzen

makes it's mighty might more mighter

And it's just a bloody miracle you've got

when you are through

You got a little Itsy-Bitsy Big Boy

Boomeroo

That lovely throbbing, globbing gumdrop

that you're holding in your hand

will blow those blasted Zooks away

to Never Never Land

You just run to the Wall

like a nice little man.

Drop this bomb on the Zooks

just as fast as you can.

I have ordered all Yooks

to stay safe underground...

while the Bitsy Big Boy Boomeroo

is around.

That's when grandfather found me.

He grabbed me. He said:

"You should be down that hole!

And you're up here instead!

But perhaps this is all

for the better, somehow.

You will see me make history!

RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW!"

"You will see your old grandpa

put an end to them all.

Put an end to all those Zooks

who live over the Wall.

Put an end to the every last village

and town of those fiends...

who eat bread with the butter side down.

And I, my dear chap,

have a message for you.

Mainly, I also have...

a Big Boy Boomeroo.

And it's my firm intention,

since I have the means...

to blast every Yook

into small smithereens.

Grandpa, be careful.

Hey, easy.

Who's gonna drop it? Will you or will he?

Why...

Be patient. We'll see.

We will see...

English