Kinda Like an Insane Asylum: Project Runway One, Episode Four

This post is dedicated to the Project RunGay Guys, Tom & Lorenzo, for managing to entertain us with witty recaps of Project Runway and other sundry topics day after day. How they and Eric Three Thousand manage to do it, I haven't a clue. Thanks, Guys. Once upon a time in the Happy Kingdom of Parson's in the era of Project Runway Season One, all was right with the world. Birds sang, bees buzzed, and all the designers got along, sometimes even frolicking with each other. But then in Episode Four, bad witch Sarah Hudson, singer of Girl on the Verge, chose only three designers to create her new rock concert gown, causing strife in the Kingdom.

The first chosen designer was Jay, who tra-la-lahed with glee and boasted that the bad witch had the hots for him 'cause "She picked his ass!"

The second chosen designer was Austin, who, overcome by the opportunity to provide a little "frou-frou Bo-pee pee edge" to the witch's outfit, squeezed his pecs with delight.

The third chosen designer was Kevin, who whispered with shy but becoming coyness, "I thought I was too soft spoken."

Kevin got to choose a team member first and he chose Nora, she of the Glamazon-Mohawk do. And in the next round he chose Alexandra, she with the voice that is seldom heard.

And all was still right with the Happy Kingdom of Parson's. Nora the Glamazon proclaimed, "I don't think I'm gonna rub Kevin the wrong way. I think we make a good team." (And, frankly, gentle readers, we don't think that Kevin can be rubbed the wrong way either.)

Kevin and Alexandra nodded in agreement.

But then Kevin made one tiny, minuscule mistake: He actually believed he was the team leader. He whipped out his design and softly ventured to say, "What I am aiming for...what I want...is a kind of, you know, control out of control."

"Whatever," Nora said, glancing disdainfully at Kevin's pattern pieces, which were the size of Manhattan. She was still ticked that her "run through the chandelier" idea had not been embraced by the bad witch, "Just so you remember, Kevin, I NEVER forget details. Oh, and I bust balls too!"

"Uh, oh," whispered Kevin, beginning to look just a teensie bit worried. He handed Nora a strip of white fabric, asking her to cut it for his poofy skirt and then shred it.

She yanked it from him. "Kevin, we need to stop with these niggly details. Or we're gonna LOSE this competition!

Kevin hung his head. All he could muster was a weak "Thanks." He wanted to sound sarcastic, but he dared not for fear of setting her off.

All his attempts were for naught. Kevin left the room for only a minute, Austin's Bo pee pee remark having triggered his bladder. And when he returned, the Happy Kingdom of Parson's was no more.

Nora had turned into a raging Road Runner Bitch, darting hither and yon, overturning work tables and prying up floorboards searching for one of Kevin's humongous pattern pieces which, she screeched, was "F--KING* missing! It's disappeared off the face of the earth. Somebody...everybody... except me...even though I was the last person to fondle that pattern...IS RESPONSIBLE!"

"How can you lose a pattern piece the size of Manhattan in the short time I took to Bo pee pee?" Kevin ventured.

Alexandra simply stared at Kevin, struck by his wise remark. Why hadn't she thought of that? Nora had made her think she was partly responsible and here she'd been helping her overturn heavy tables and pry up floor boards with her bare hands and ruining her nails in the process. Well, Bitch can put everything back herself and pay for her manicure!

The other designers could not contain their glee. Oh, boy, they thought in unison, Team Kevin is gonna lose for sure. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! They would have danced around the Maypole if those chintzy Project Runway producers had supplied them with one. It was bad enough their models weren't being paid, and that all of them were eating gruel, but to provide no Maypole in the Kingdom of Parson's? How cheap can a production company get?

"Quick, somebody give her a Valium!" cried Jay in alarm when the raving Road Runner Bitch turned her sights on Queen Kara and began to accuse that model of perfection of stealing the pattern piece, then accusing them all. Queen Kara tried to reason with Nora in a soothing voice, but to no avail.

Then Vanessa volunteered, "I'll sing her a lullaby. That should shut her the *F--K* up!"

After listening to Vanessa's falsetto for exactly .03 seconds, our raving Road Runner Bitch inexplicably mutated into a crying squalling baby. "WAAAH! I wanna go HOME. I'm too good for this!"




Whereupon Vanessa instantly stopped singing and declared, "This is a total NUT farm!"

(If you think I exaggerate, gentle reader, just click on these words and judge for yourself.)

The inestimable Tim Gunn took this moment to enter the Kingdom of Parson's. Oblivious to the unfolding drama he zeroed in on Team Jay's black leather bustier fringed with black feathers and declared, "Wow, this is a work of art in itself. Incredible!" Then Tim disappeared, silent as a spectre, for his sage words were not much required in Season One.

Jay's unabashed crowing triggered another outburst from Bitch Baby. "I'm only 22 years old and I've got more talent in my hangnail than the lot of you thrown together. I won competitions in college, I tell ya! I'm gonna be a Design Star!" "Uh, oh," she thought, wishing she had not blurted out those last words. "Wrong show, wrong channel. Heidi might bitch-slap me for making that statement and then I might get auf'd!" Her upper lip began to quiver.

"Oh, stuff it up your Mohawk!" exclaimed Queen Kara, having had it up to her weave with the dramatics.

Whereupon Bitch Baby raced out of the room wailing and moaning like ten banshees under a full moon.

Kevin and Alexandra heaved great gulping sighs of relief.

"We've got three seconds to finish the outfit, think we can do it?" asked Kevin timidly.

Sure, said Alexandra, plucking her backbone from amongst the ruined tables and putting it on. Let's git er' done!

In the last millisecond of the competition and afraid she was gonna be trumped by that weenie Alexandra and all those other lousy, talentless, good for nothing designers, Bitch Baby stopped sniffling and sped back inside the room. "I lost my cool on purpose. I knew you and Kevin didn't have spines or talent so I had to do SOMETHING to push you into my sphere of greatness," she shouted.

Ha ha, tee hee, sniggered Kevin and Alexandra, for Bitch Baby's power had been broken. They then turned their backs on her and finished the job in the blink of an eye.

"Yeah, whatever," said Bitch Baby to no one in particular. Then she whined, "No one will care if I'm gone."

"For once," declared Queen Kara, "we're in agreement!" Bitch Baby hissed and extended her claws, but Queen Kara smote her with a steely glare.

Looking on, Lolly Pepper smiled broadly. "Oh goodie, these fruitcakes have taken the pressure off me," she thought. She was still angry that the bad witch Sarah Hudson had dismissed her rocker outfit, though she recalled her sales pitch fondly: "Everything is see-through. Think classic erotic pornographic lingerie."

We now fast forward to the runway competition, where Team Austin's zany model Morgan strutted down the runway like Marie Antoinette entertaining a thousand of her closest and dearest friends at Versailles.

"Ooooh, ick! This is seriously ugly," thought the wicked witch Sarah Hudson, not really into frilly skirts or House on the Prairie ringlets, but marveling that Team Austin had accomplished so much in a short time. "I don't wanna get my head auf'd wearing that reedeeculous outfit while singing at some seedy bar. Michael Richards could stop by and steal my thunder." And she shook her head no at Austin's design.

Austin was already distraught about La Pepper's betrayal and for ratting out Loony Vanessa. Still thinking that his design was a "glorious masterpiece," he collapsed in a puddle of Queen Tears.

Vanessa momentarily considered committing Hara-Kiri after confessing to the judges that she was the worst sewer ever in the history of womankind. But then she rejected the idea for being too painful.


The second model to come strutting down the runway was the hot, underaged Melissa, who was wearing Kevin's Edwardian look.

"Melissa, baby, you look like a rock star!" Kevin crowed, but nobody heard him (or agreed with him, for that matter, except bad witch Sarah.)

Bitch Baby watched Melissa move down the runway in total surprise. "That dress looked great. I mean I don't even know how," she explained to the judges, "I mean, I feel I had to help Kevin along. The experience of being frazzled kept me going."

After Judges Ninotchka and Mickey picked themselves off the floor from laughing, they asked Kevin, "So how did you deal with the Bitch?

"I slapped her silly and then I sat on her," said Kevin in his weeniest voice.

"Collaboration and team building, that's what this competion's all about," intoned Mickey before bursting in giggles again.

Erin, the last model to walk down the runway, represented Team Jay. Not only did she rock the casbah, her outfit SCREAMED rock and roll! But bad witch Sarah would have none of it. The design was so spot on that she would have had to match her talent to that outfit. Jay's design outmatched her voice and for that he could not win.

And so it was decreed that Kevin was the winner, and that either Nora or Vanessa, the two bottom dwellers, would be the next to go.

"Me and my damned verbal diarrhea," Vanessa thought ruefully. "I shoulda taken some Pepto Bismol and kept my friggin' mouth shut!"

When the judges asked about her lack of team work, Nora blustered,"The meltdown was good. I saved Kevin's ass by making him do work."

The judges consulted for a goodly five seconds before aufing Vanessa, who took their decision like a man!

After his win, Kevin finally managed a smile, for he had found his spine under that humongous misplaced pattern piece. "Bitch better be auf'd soon," he said in a voice so strong it was heard across the Kingdom of Parson's.

The designers all nodded in agreement, and all was right in their Kingdom again.

Results

Auf'd: Vanessa Riley Winner: Kevin Johnns