Caroll steps out on stage and notices Jim in the audience, making him speechless for a moment. Everyone else in the audience seems to disappear. Caroll snaps out of it.
CAROLL
What I am presenting to you tonight is an innovative new experiment in film and puppetry. Thank you.
Caroll steps into his puppet theater. To be clear, the puppet theater is different from the theater he’s in. Like, his puppet movie theater is on a stage in a real theater. So, it’s like, okay, so there’s a screen behind him, right? And there are three cones projected onto the screen, but they can only be seen if the spotlight in the theater isn’t on, and these cones are different from his puppet cones, but the puppet cones become cartoon cones. And, like, okay, so, okay, there’s also a record with music that plays when he kicks it with his knee. I’m explaining this terribly. God, this sucks. Kill me. Is anyone still reading this at this point? Should I just give up now? Okay, keep it together, you can do this, you’ve written scripts before, you got this, okay, okay, you can do this, okay, you got this, okay.
Caroll tries to do his show and it goes bad. He pulls out his hair and yells at a kid and almost falls into a huge pit. They turn off the light and he finishes his act with a flying bird thing. That’s the best I can describe it. Good luck making the shot list for this scene, suckers!!!
INT. PUPPETEER LOUNGE – NIGHT
Jim quietly walks up behind Caroll.
JIM
I saw your show. I liked what you were trying to do. You too, screenwriter! Good effort! Never give up!