The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe turned to run from whatever was approaching from the dark tunnel and were stopped instantly by a large, furry obstacle.
"Oh no!" cried the Doctor.
"What shall we do?" Zoe cried.
Blocking their escape and approaching them from the tunnel each was a twenty foot long fluffy bunny. The one in the tunnel was white and the other was brown and white with a cute raccoon's mask over its eyes.
"This really has gotten quite out of hand!" cried the Doctor.
--
In his master control room Meister Dmitrov leaned over the shoulder of the monitor operator at the telemetry station for the white giant fluffy bunny. "Kill them!" he commanded into the microphone.
The video POV approached the Doctor and his friends and sniffed at them.
"Kill them!" Dmitrov shouted.
--
Jamie and Zoe were still cringing between the two giant fluffy bunnies, but the Doctor was eying the white one intensely while it sniffed him. Eventually Jamie and Zoe noticed they weren't being eaten and observed what he was doing.
"What are you doing, Doctor?" Zoe asked.
"It's all right," said the Doctor. He even patted the giant fluffy bunny on the nose. "We seem to be quite safe."
"The beasties are nae going to kill us?"
"Oh, I have no doubt that that was Dmitrov's intent," said the Doctor. "But Earth's twentieth century film industry notwithstanding, it takes more than enhanced size to make a monster."
--
"It does?" said Dmitrov to the monitor speaker. Heads turned among his people. Doubt had been sown.
--
Zoe was patting the other fluffy bunny's nose now. "You're a good boy, aren't you?" said Zoe in that voice some people use on pets and children. From Zoe it sounded the same as her normal intonations.
"Doctor," Jamie said, "what aboot the giant mad dogs?"
"You're right, Jamie," said the Doctor, eyes widening. He gave the fluffy bunny's nose a last pat and started back toward the main park, Jamie and Zoe following. "We must stop the rock and roll concert!"
--
"I thought the Doctor was going to sit in with us," said Death Turnip.
"With his flute," said Rotten Grapes.
"Recorder," said Pus.
"Whatever," said Rotten Grapes.
"We'll just have to go on without him," said Spoilt Milk.
The promoter walked up to them. "You're on in two, kids. Now, we're a little conservative on this planet, and even a rock and roll concert must be done with by ten p.m."
"Ours go till eleven," said Pus. The promoter tried to argue so they took his pants away before they went on.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and neuters," boomed an announcer as the band appeared, "this is Menstrual Cramp!"
The crowd began to roar as the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe ran up to the edge of the outdoor arena. "We're too late, aren't we?" cried Zoe encouragingly.
The Doctor looked around wildly. They were near a post on which was mounted an unoccupied platform on which was mounted a set of loudspeakers. "Boost me up there, Jamie!"
The band picked up their instruments as the Doctor clambered up onto the platform. "What're ye doing, Doctor?" Jamie asked. "D'ye think ye'll go quicker if it's easier for the giant mad dogs tae reach ye?"
"There are controls here for the entire sound system!" the Doctor shouted down. "If I can turn it off before the sabotaged electric tamborine starts playing -"
On the stage Spoilt Milk took a mike off its stand. "Hello, Fortinbras VIII!"
The crowd hushed as if turned off by a switch.
"... What?" Someone near the front was shouting at the stage, but of course the travelers could only hear Spoilt Milk. "... This is Tannenbaum's World? Not Fortinbras VIII? ... Whatever."
"What's taking so long, Doctor?" Zoe shouted.
"Don't rush me!"
"We've never played in front of people before," continued Spoilt Milk, "and we're scared -" If there had been a qualifying adjective at the end of her sentence the crowd wasn't to hear it, because the sound system went out with a loud squeal of feedback.
"Just in time, eh Doctor?" shouted Jamie.
"What?" said the Doctor.
"What?" said Jamie.
"What?" said the Doctor.
"I'm sorry," Zoe said to Jamie, "are you talking to me?"
"What?" said Jamie.
"What?" said the Doctor.
"What?" said Zoe.
"What?" said the Doctor.
This went on until the Doctor was back on the ground, which was rather awhile, because his coat got stuck and neither Jamie nor Zoe heard him complaining that he couldn't get free himself. He finally overbalanced, while trying to get their attention, and fell, putting a rip in his coat.
"Doctor," said Zoe suddenly, just as his hearing was returning, "but what about the giant wild boars?"
"Oh no, I'd forgotten about them!" cried the Doctor. "Hurry!"
--
In his master control room Meister Dmitrov was still on the microphone to the white giant fluffy bunny.
"Couldn't you kill them just a little?" he was saying.
Unnoticed by Dmitrov, every single one of his monitor personnel had taken advantage of his distraction to leave. With his continued obsessive behavior over the fluffy bunnies' lack of homicidal instinct, the doubt he had sown with his first show of uncertainty had been properly hemmed, embroidered, stood for sale in the high-fashion district and was now passe. With every passing moment another red warning light began flashing on the now uncontrolled control boards.
--
"That was a narrow escape, wasn't it?" said Jamie, eying the giant wild boars still in their pens.
"But Doctor," said Zoe, "what about the giant grizzly bears?"
"Oh no!" cried the Doctor. "Quick, to the shoe store!"
The time travelers proceeded to the shoe store with alacrity considerably diminished since their encounter with giant fluffy bunnies. When they arrived, there were several giant grizzly bears climbing the shoe store - which at 158 storeys was the tallest building on Tannenbaum's World - swiping with their paws at the military air vehicles whose gunfire was having no effect on the bears except to annoy them.
"Aah - our time finally ran out, eh?" Jamie puffed. He was gasping too hard to sound very concerned.
The Doctor leaned on a lamppost and dug a watch out of a trouser pocket. "No," he panted, "the sabotaged water glasses weren't to have gone off for two minutes yet."
"You mean ...?" Zoe hacked.
"Yes. Meister Dmitrov has lost control of his giant animals! They'll be even more dangerous now! Quickly, we must get to -"
"Here now, what's all this then?" A man in a uniform with that indefinable quality that says constable was approaching them.
"Officer, thank goodness," said the Doctor. "I must get to -"
"You're not going anywhere, guv," said the constable. "Your coat's ripped - that's indecent exposure on Tannenbaum's World, innit? You're all coming with me."
ROLL CREDITS