Cilla: Okay, Dem, you ready?

Demi: Huh? For what?

Cilla: For my new parody, of course, silly! The others did tell you, didn’t they?

Demi: I’m probably going to regret this, but what didn’t they tell me?

Cilla: Tell her, Munku.

Munku: Sorry, Dem. She’s spoofing Evita and you’re the lead.

Demi: (whimpers) Why me?

Cilla: Because it just worked out that way. Besides, all of you should feel honored to be appearing in my fic. Oh, and Munku, in case they forgot to tell you, too, you’re playing Ché.

Munku: (groan)

Cilla: Oh, stop moaning and go get your costume on. Places, everyone!

(The setting is an old-time movie theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The date is the 26 of July 1952. The cinema is jam-packed with cats of all ages, watching a wishy-washy black and white movie. The “crowd” of about six cats is made up of our extras, including Etcetera, Electra, and Mistoffelees, who was just happy that he wasn’t given a real part. Suddenly, the film stops and the house lights go on. There is much protestation on the part of the audience.)

(dead silence)

Cilla: Ahem! Protestation, please!

Extras: Boo. Hiss.

Cilla: (rolls eyes) Let’s continue.

(The theater manager addresses the crowd.)

Asparagus: It is my sad duty to inform you that Dema Peron, spiritual leader of Argentina, croaked at 8:25 this evening.

Cilla: Please, Asparagus, show some compassion! And read your script. I believe the line is “passed into immortality”.

Asparagus: Whatever. Same difference.

(Anyway, the crowd cries and mourns hysterically, then all leave the theater, one by one. Only one tom seems to be indifferent. This is Múnk, the narrator of sorts. In the streets of Buenos Aires, there are extensive scenes of Dema Peron’s funeral. To cut short a long, pointless part, everyone is very sad at the death of Dema, whose body is displayed under glass for all to see.)

Demi: Gross!

Tugger: They could charge admission! (Demeter sits up in her coffin and hits him) Aahh! She’s alive!

Cilla: Cool it, guys! Let’s get on with it.

(We see in a series of flashbacks that as a kit, Dema’s family was banned from attending her father’s funeral, because she and her brother and sisters were illegitimate. The scene changes back to 1952 Buenos Aires, where we catch up with Múnk, who’s sitting in an empty bar.)

Munku: (singing)

Oh, what a circus, oh what a show!

The author has gone to town

Over this stupid spoof she’s making us do.

It’s quite a fanfic

And good for the author, in a not-so-roundabout way

Tons of people will be reading her fic

By the end of today

(he deftly skips a verse or two)

Write, fool author, but you got it wrong

Enjoy your fic, because it hasn’t got long

(he catches a venomous glare from the author)

Cilla: Stop making up words, dangit!

Munku: (wisely deciding to sing the right words)

Your queen is dead, your king is through

She’s not coming back to you!

Cilla: That’s quite enough of that, thank you.

Munku: (grinning) I don’t know, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

(We flash back to the small town of Junín, Argentina, in the year 1926 (I think). In a small room of a local inn, two cats are in bed together. They are, as we will soon discover, Dema Duarte and Agustín Tugaldi.)

Jelly: Whoa, Miss Author, let’s watch the PG rating, okay?

Cilla: Sorry, Jelly, just doing it like it was in the movie. Besides, have no fear, by the end of this, I’m sure we’ll have managed to shoot that to pieces.

Demi: (screeching) You don’t expect me to get in bed with Tugger, do you?!?!

Tugger: (snorts) Huh, and what makes you think I’d want to with you?

Bomba: (growls threateningly) I think that you had better reconsider this scene, Cilla.

Cilla: Alright, alright, just skip that part, okay? Munk, I believe you have lines here. And this time, get them right.

Munku: Oh, right.

(singing)

Now Dema Peron had every disadvantage

You need if you’re gonna succeed

No money, no cash

No father, no bright light

There was nowhere she’d been at the age of fifteen

As this tango singer found out

Agustín Tugaldi.

Who has the distinction of being the first tom to be of use to Dema Duarte.

Tugger: (indignantly) No one uses the Rum Tum Tugger!

Cilla: Hush, you walking furball! Not you, your character.

Tugger: (mumbles darkly under his breath)

Cilla: Pipe down, Tug, you’re on!

(Tugaldi, being the tango singer at the inn, sings a mushy love song, directed to Demita, who sits in the audience with her family, who own the inn.)

Tugger: Do I hafta sing this song? It’s so pointless.

Cilla: Less grumbling, more singing.

Tugger: (singing)

On this night of a thousand stars

Let me take you to Heaven’s door

Where the music of love’s guitars

Plays forevermore.

Demi: Ick, Cilla, make him stop.

Cilla: Alright, Tug, you’ve sung enough.

Tugger: Thank you. Thank you very much.

(He heads back to the dressing rooms, where Dema sings to him about her wanting to go to Buenos Aires with him. He is reluctant, to say the least, about taking her along.)

Demi: (singing)I wanna be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires, Big Apple!

Tugger: (singing) Dema, beware of the city

It’s hungry and cold, can’t be controlled, it is mad

Those who are fools are swallowed up whole

And those who are not become what they should not become

Changed, in short they go bad.

Demi: (singing) Bad is good for me, I’m bored!

So clean and so ignored

I’ve only been predictable, respectable

Birds fly out of here, so why oh why oh why the hell can’t I?

Pounce: Because you’re a cat, dummy!

Cilla: Ya know, it’s pretty sad when no one can think up anything funny to say.

Pounce: Hey, what am I, chopped liver?!

Cilla: No, just not funny.

Demeter: (glares) Can I finish now?!?!

I only want variety, of society

I wanna be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires, Big Apple!

(Finally, Tugaldi is forced to give in. After bidding farewell to her family, Dema and Tugaldi board the train to Buenos Aires. As they arrive, Dema sings a perfectly peppy song about the exciting city.)

Tanta: What city? All I see is a cardboard skyline.

Cilla: It’s called ‘imagination’, Tanta. Carry on, please.

Demi: (singing, walking around the ‘set’ and trying not to knock over the cardboard skyline as she dances around)

What’s new, Buenos Aires?

I know I wanna stay a little bit stuck on you

You’ll be on me too

I get out here, Buenos Aires

Stand back!

You oughta know what’cha gonna get in me

Just a little touch of star quality!

Tugger: Okay, okay, before you knock over the set!

(As he says this, he trips over her and ploughs right into the backdrop.)

Cilla: Great, no more scenery for you guys. Get up, Tugger.

(There’s this big dancing scene in here, but for the sake of brevity, we’ll cut it.)

Demi: Huh? I like that part!

Cilla: Tough.

(Dema follows Tugaldi to an old building to discover that he is married. Sra. Tugaldi (Bomba in a cameo) shuts the door in Demita’s face.)

All: Awwwww…

(Dema wanders through Buenos Aires, singing forlornly. Múnk, who will from now on appear in many different places and many different costumes, is a bartender in a bar that Dema ends up at. He echoes her in her melancholy song.)

Munku: Oh, in other words, my character is something of a stalker who follows Dema around throughout her life and makes sure the audience understands what’s going on?

Cilla: Essentially, yes. I prefer to think of him as her guardian angel.

Munku: (under his breath) Freak.

Cilla: (chooses to ignore him, and addresses Demi) Keep moving!

Demi: (singing)

I don’t expect my love affairs to last for long

Never fool myself that my dreams will come true

Being used to trouble, I anticipate it

But all the same, I hate it.

Wouldn’t you?

So what happens now?

Munku: (yeah, singing, you get the picture) Another suitcase in another hall

Demi: So what happens now?

Munku: Take your picture off another wall

Demi: Where am I going to?

Munku: You’ll get by, you always have before

Demi: Where am I going to?

(At a job interview, Dema meets a little wimpy photographer tom, played by Misto--)

Misto: Wait a second, I thought I didn’t have a part in this thing!

Cilla: (shuffles her paws uncomfortably) Well, I kinda needed a tom at short notice, and you came to mind…

Misto: Oh, and I am NOT wimpy!

Cilla: Well, the guy in the movie was…

(Anyway, Dema meets a photographer who is most definitely NOT wimpy, and she *ahem* sleeps with him, in order to get her photographs in magazines.)

Demi & Misto: WHAT?!?!

Cilla: Just play along please, guys?

(Dema is becoming famous from her magazine gigs. One night, Misto comes up the stairs to her apartment with flowers, to see her go in with another tom, Pouncival, who has another job that is helpful to Dema’s purposes. Misto watches, heartbroken. Múnk, who’s the janitor in the building, comes out of his room at the top of the stairs and sings to Misto.)

Cilla: Alright, everybody, you better get this song right, because it’s one of my favorites.

Munku: Goodnight and thank you, whoever

She’s in every magazine, been photographed, seen,

She is known

We don’t like to rush, but your case has been packed

If she’s missed anything, you could give her a ring

But she won’t always answer the phone

(Demita comes out of her apartment in a bathrobe to join Múnk in the song.)

Demi: Boy, I change fast!

Oh, but it’s sad when a love affair dies

But we have pretended enough

It’s best that we just stop fooling ourselves

Munku: Which means…

Both: There is no one, no one at all,

Never has been and never will be a lover, male or female,

Who hasn’t an eye on, in fact they rely on, tricks they can try on their partner

They’re hoping their lover will help them or keep them

Support them, promote them

Don’t blame them, you’re the same.

(They exchange a glance, then separate, Dema going back into her room, Múnk into his. Later, Dema dumps Pouncival for Tumble, who’s in the radio business and gets her a radio job. Dema and Pounce are at a restaurant and Dema is doing the tango with Tumble, while Pounce watches sadly. Múnk, dressed as a waiter, sings to Pounce.)

Pounce: I get dumped too?

Cilla: Yep, sorry. Dema’s a really busy gal.

Demi: Hey!

Munku: Can I sing now?! (clears his throat) Ahem!

Goodnight and thank you, Pouncival

You’ve completed your task, what more can we ask of you now?

Please sign the book on the way out the door

And that will be all, if she needs you she’ll call,

But I don’t think that’s likely somehow.

Demi: Oh, but it’s sad when a love affair dies

But when we were hot we were hot

I know you’ll look back on the good times we shared

Munku: Which means…

Both: There is no one, no one at all

Never has been and never will be a lover, male or female

Who hasn’t an eye on, in fact they rely on, tricks they can try on their partner

They’re hoping their lover will help them or keep them,

Support them, promote them

Munku: Don’t blame her, you’re the same

Alright, I’ve had enough of this song.

Cilla: Hey, you can’t just stop singing!

Munku & Demi: Watch us!

Cilla: Oh well. And Munku, don’t get too excited. You’re on next.

(Anyhoo, Dema goes from Tumble to Gen. Plato, who helps her become a movie star, even though she’s a sucky actress. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite stalker, Múnk, recounts the changes in government over the past years.)

Cilla: Hey, narrator-thingy, I just got finished telling him that he was NOT a stalker!

(Sorry.)

Munku: In June of ’43 there was a military coup

Behind it was a gang called the G.O.U.

G.O.U., what the heck does that stand for?

Cilla: How should I know?

Munku: I dunno, I just like to know what I’m singing. Anyway, where was I?

Who did not feel the need to be elected

They had themselves a party at the point of a gun

It was slightly to the right of Attila the Hun

A bomb or two and very few objected

Yeah, just one shell and gov’nments fall like flies

Ka-pow, die, they stumble and fall

Bye-bye, backs to the wall

Aim high, we’re havin’ a ball

The tank and bullet rule as democracy dies!

Now this is a cool song! I don’t mind singing this one.

Cilla: Well, we’re glad you’re enjoying yourself and everything, but hurry it up, all right? We don’t have all day!

Munku: Okay, okay.

The lady’s got potential, she was setting her sights

On making it in movies with her name in lights

The greatest social climber since Cinderella

Okay, she couldn’t act, but she had the right friends

And we all know a career depends

On knowing the right fella to be stellar

YEAH, just one shell and gov’nments lose their nerve

Ka-pow, die, they stumble and fall

Bye-bye, backs to the wall

Aim high, we’re havin’ a ball

That’s how we get the government we deserve

Now the tom behind the president calling the shots

Involved so discreetly in a lot of their plots

Was Col. ‘Lonz Peron, the would-be dictator

He began in the army out in Italy so

Saw Pussolini’s rise from the very front row

Cilla: (yells) Mussolini! Mussolini!

Munku: Whatever.

I reckoned he’d do likewise sooner or later

YEAH, just one blast and the tear gas falls like rain

Ka-pow, die, they haven’t a chance

Bye-bye, the terrors advance

But one guy doesn’t dirty his hands

Peron was biding time out in the slow lane

Cilla: Sorry, Munk, this is taking up way too much HTML space. We’ll have to cut this short.

Munku: What? I actually like a song, and you cut it?

Jenny: Munku, dear, I wouldn’t call a two page song one that was ‘cut’.

(To make a long story short, Peron organizes a charity concert to help victims of an earthquake in San Juan in order to increase his political appeal. It is on Jan. 22, 1944--)

Munku: A night to remember, yeah that’s for sure

For that’s the night that Peron first met Dema

For that’s the night that Peron first met DEMAAAAAA!

Cilla: I thought we were done with that song.

(Who should be performing at this concert but dah-dum! Tugaldi, Demita’s old flame. He’s still singing the same cruddy material that he was singing back when Dema knew him.)

Tugger: What?! You mean I have to sing that song again?!

Cilla: Sorry, yeah.

Tugger: (grumbling) You’re not sorry.

(grudgingly)On this night of a thousand stars

Let me take you to Heaven’s door

Where the music of love’s guitars

Plays forever MOOOORE!

Cilla: Thanks, Tug, you’re a pal.

Tugger: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(Tugaldi and Dema meet backstage. Dema notes with a smirk that Tug is still singing the same crud. Dema meets Col. Peron. There is mutual attraction, and the two return to his apartment, singing (what else!))

Demi: But I don’t like Alonzo.

Alonzo: And I hate wearing suits.

Cilla: That’s too bad, so sad. Sorry, Demi, your only scene with Munku isn’t until later. Deal with it, or get to like Alonzo (winks).

Demi, Alonzo & Munku: Eewwwww!!!

Munku: Back off, Author Girl!

Demi: Alright, let’s do this.

It seems crazy, but you must believe

There’s nothing calculated, nothing planned

Please forgive me if I seem naïve

I would never want to force your hand

But please understand

I’d be good for you

I don’t always rush in like this

Twenty seconds after saying hello

Telling strangers I’m too good to miss

If I’m wrong I hope you tell me so

But you really should know

I’d be good for you

I’d be surprisingly good for you

(The next day, Dema and Peron go to his home, where it’s Dema’s job to get rid of Peron’s old mistress, Cassandra. Cassandra, heartbroken, reprises Dema’s earlier song.)

Cassie: You just had to drag me into this.

So what happens now? So what happens now?

Where am I going to?

Alonzo: You’ll get by, you always have before

Cassie: Where am I going to?

Demi: Don’t ask anymore

(After ditching Cassie, the new couple--)

Demi: Do they have to phrase it that way?

(--the new couple go to many different social events, with Múnk always nearby. By discussing the subject of Dema with the aristocats and members of the armed forces, it becomes obvious that Dema is less than popular with these groups, esp. the upper class, because they are upset that anyone from the lower class can be important.)

Cilla: Okay, everybody, we’re gonna do some of this song, but there are some bad words in it, and I don’t want to hear any of them out of anybody. OK?

Munku: That’s fine and dandy, but exactly how much of this song are we singing?

Cilla: Enough for the readers to get the picture, ‘kay? Alright, go on.

(The next three sections are sung in overlapping stanzas, and for HTML difficulty, will be posted as most overlapping songs have been done in the past)

Munku: At the watering holes of the well-to-do

I detect a resistance to

Our heroine’s style

The shooting sticks of the upper class

And supporting a single a--

Cilla: HEY!! Hey, watch your mouth, buster!

Munku: (grinning wickedly) Oops!

That would rise for the girl

Could there be in our fighting corps,

A lack of enthusiasm for

Peron’s latest flame?

Aristocats: Precisely

We’re glad you noticed

Give her an inch

She’ll take a mile

Soldiers: Exactly

You said it, brother!

The evidence suggests

She has other interests

If it’s her who’s using him

He’s exceptionally dim

BITC--!

Cilla: Excuse me!!! Does no one listen to me?!

Munku: Apparently not.

Cilla: You! This is all your fault! You set a bad example!

Munku: I’m skipping to the reporter part.

(Múnk, dressed as a reporter, follows Dema around, badgering her with questions as she signs autographs, until her bodyguards throw him out.)

Munku: This has really been your year, Miss Duarte

Tell us where you go from here, Miss Duarte

Which are the roles that you yearn to play?

Whom did you sleep-dine with yesterday?

Demi: Acting is limiting, the line’s not mine

That’s no help to the Argentines

Munku: Can we assume then that you’ll quit?

Is this because of your involvement with Col. Peron?

Plato & Tumble (the bodyguards): Goodnight and thank you!

Cilla: Alright, let’s move on, before we encounter any more evil words.

(Peron is arrested at his home by the government for treason or something. The entire country, encouraged by Dema, protests for his release. Dema delivers knockout speeches, and tells the people that Peron supports them and plans to run for president.)

Crowd: A new Argentina

The chain of the past is untied

A new Argentina

The voice of the people cannot be denied

Demi: There is only one man who can lead any workers’ regime

He lives for your problems, he shares your ideals and your dream

He supports you, for he loves you,

Understands you, IS ONE OF YOU!

If not, how could he love me?

Now I am a worker, I’ve suffered the way that you do

I’ve been unemployed, and I’ve starved, and I’ve hated it too

But I found my salvation in Peron

MAY THE NATION!!!!!!

Let him save them as he saved me

Crowd (with Demi & Munku): A new Argentina

A new age about to begin

A new Argentina

We face the world together

(The government sees that there is nothing to be done for it but let ‘Lonz go, so they do that. After he’s free, Peron enters the presidential race. He and Dema make speeches, hold rallies, and generally do all the things cats on the campaign trail usually do. They also do something that some consider to be another ploy-they get married. Of course, they also sabotage their opponents’ rallies. Múnk, who for some reason, is at these rallies, and is an active political demonstrator. He’s also involved in riots and plenty of trouble.)

Munku: Oh, great, so now I’m not only a stalker, I’m a troublemaking revolutionary.

Cilla: You got it.

Munku: I foresee trouble with that.

Electra: How do you know?

Munku: I read the script.

(Anyway, Demita, who’s become a great favorite of the people, and her husband Peron are elected President of Argentina and First Lady, and everybody parties.)

Cilla: Alright, everybody, halfway through!

Pounce: Coffee break!!!

All: Yay!! (they all run out)

Cilla: Hey, wait! Be sure to be back in five minutes!!