TV ACRES: Puppets > Aliens > Grover (a.k.a. Orville the Moon Creature)

(News Bulletin) From the wires of our news service...A brightly burning unidentified object lit West Coast skies from Los Angeles to Portland. East of Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho. Police at Wyreka, in far Northern California near the Oregon border reported it appeared to be a small egg-shaped object which gave off blue sparks. A county sheriff's officer said hundreds of observers reported having seen a flying saucer.
Freberg:	Now I don't know how much stock you folks put in this story but within a few hours of the time the object was sighted, a flying saucer actually landed and was captured by Mr. Leroy Fipps. (Mr. Fipps enters). Now, just how did you find the saucer. Well, I found it next to the carrots.
Mr. Fipps:	I had come home for dinner. I was hungry. I sat down in the breakfast nuk and there it was next to the carrots. Must of flown in the window.
Freberg:	I see.
Mr. Fipps:	I thought it was an unusually large Hubbard squash. I had it all buttered up. Yes sir, I was going to partake of it. And then, all of a sudden, it started making the noise like a little teenie Dixie land band.
Freberg:	Well, what happened then?
Mr. Fipps:	The lid popped open and a teenie little man with an antenna climbed right out.
Freberg:	Well that's pretty fantastic. Just a moment Mr. Fipps, so where's the saucer now:
Mr. Fipps:	What do you think this is I'm holding under my arm.
Freberg:	Well. I didn't now. Here, set it on the table there. (Fipps leaves). Certainly is a strange looking object, Wait a minute! It starting to glow!. What's this! (whirling sounds and then a Dixieland band sound) Ladies and gentlemen this is amazing. The saucer is now giving off blue sparks. Now a little door is opening. A little man is coming out I believe, ah, he is going to speak.
Orville:	Take me to your leader.
Freberg:	No, No that's the microphone I'm over here.
Orville:	Are you an Earthman?
Freberg:	Yes, I am. What did you think I was?
Orville:	I don't know. I thought you were an unusually talkative Hubbard squash. Do you mind if I partake of you?
Freberg:	No, please. Ah, my name is Stan Freberg. Where are you from?
Orville:	My name is Orville. I'm from the Moon. I got a letter from my sister. She was on your show two weeks ago.
Freberg:	Oh yeah, Miss Jupiter, the girl with the shapely wheels.
Orville:	Sir, I'll thank you to leave my sister's wheels out of this.
Freberg:	I'm sorry. It was rude of me
Orville:	Do all people look like you?
Freberg:	No. Not all of them
Orville:	Because it's quite a disappointment to me so far, to be honest
Freberg:	Peggy Taylor come over here for a minute. See there Orville.
Orville:	He's a nice looking boy, isn't he.
Freberg:	I'll have to have a talk with you sometime. By the way, what made you leave the Moon?
Orville:	I didn't care for the climate. They had this stuff in the air. It was a mixture of smoke and fog. The politicians tried to blame it on exhaust from the flying saucers. But ah, actually, it was caused by the green cheese refineries. Oh, they kept promising to do something about but they never did. Big business you know. I got tired of my eyes burning and came here to Los Angeles to get away of it. So, do you thing I'll like it here better?
Freberg:	Well, I wouldn't send your laundry out for a while.
Orville:	Hey, Freeb
Freberg:	Yeah
Orville:	How's bout an introduction to the tomato.
Freberg:	Tomato? Where? Orville that's a typewriter
Orville:	I'd like to see that in a bikini.
Freberg:	That ridiculous!
Orville:	Don't knock it if you haven't SEEN it!
Freberg:	How'd you like be on the show again some time? You have a refreshing point of view.
Orville:	I'd have to sell my saucer and move in with you. Do you think I could get a good price for it?
Freberg:	Oh I think so.
Orville:	It barely new. I bought it from a little old lady on Saturn who only drove it on Sunday. Gets about ahhh 30 light years to the gallon.
Freberg:	Well, perhaps we could sell it to a science fiction magazine
Orville:	Oh, come on, you don't believe that stuff, do yah?
Freberg:	No, I don't believe that junk.
Orville:	Neither do I....

excerpt from The Onion "Satirist Stan Freberg" by Stephen Thompson (September 1, 1999 issue)

Orville, the little space man from the moon, was a character I used to do. A producer at CBS had called me and said, "Do you still have that little space puppet?" And I said, "Yes, Orville comes out of a spaceship." He said, "NASA is gonna land on the moon, hopefully, and when they land the astronauts, by orders of the NASA doctor, they have to take a nap for four hours. We don't want to stare at Walter Cronkite for four hours, and we thought you could do something. Orson Welles is narrating a thing on space and your friend Ray Bradbury has done something, and we want you to do some little pieces of varying length." And I said, "Oh, great, great. So my wife and I went out to North American Rockwell. And I stand there with Orville, and the guy's there with cue cards, and I'm changing the jokes up to the last minute, and we taped all this stuff, which they recorded in the CBS truck. While the astronauts were approaching the moon, we had just finished. So my wife and I hurry to the television set there, and they're deciding which one to put on first, and they said, "Why don't you go back to your hotel?" So we're at the hotel, and we've been up for, like, 30 hours, propping our eyelids open, and we hear Cronkite say, [imitates Cronkite] "Well, the astronauts are supposed to take a nap for four hours, so we'll be bringing you several things: a piece narrated by Orson Welles, some little satiric moments by Stan Freberg, and a... What's that? What's that? One moment... We hear that the astronauts want to forgo their nap and go right out on the moon." I yelled, "Oh, no, no! Take a nap, take a nap!"