The Lady is a Shriek

"The Lady is a Shriek" is the second episode of the second season of CatDog. In this episode, Shriek gets a makeover in order to impress Dog.

The Lady is a Shriek
Episode	Season 2, Episode 2
Airdate	February 16, 1999
Previous Episode	Fishing for Trouble
Next Episode	Dog the Mighty
Written By	Steven Banks
Storyboard Director	Dan Povenmire
Storyboard Artist	Vikki Barrett
Animation Director	George Chialtas
Music By	Denis M. Hannigan

Characters Present

• Cat
• Dog
• Cliff
• Shriek
• Lube
• Cliff
• Randolph
• Winslow
• Rancid
• Mr. Sunshine
• Mervis
• Dunglap

Plot

Shriek is on the sidewalk, with her upside down tricycle and is trying to fix it; she’s struggling and is covered in grease stains, as she struggles to loosen the bolt holding on the right rear wheel. She exclaims "Stupid Bike!" as She continues to struggle with the bolt for a bit and then pauses when she sees CatDog approaching; CatDog is walking upright (with Dog’s arms as CatDog’s legs) and Cat is carrying a new "BBQ Baron" Barbecue Grill they just bought for a barbecue party they are planning. Dog is looking forward to their party and states that it’s going to be the best Barbecue Party ever, and Cat adds in: "Especially since we’re buying a brand new, super-duper barbecue."

As CatDog approaches, Shriek focuses on Dog and lovingly remarks to herself: "Dog: What a hunk of hound." She then loudly and frustratingly asks herself: "When’s he ever gonna notice me?" As CatDog walks by, Shriek attempts to strike a pose, hoping Dog will at least look at her: she leans up against her upside down tricycle and repeatedly tosses her wrench up in the air and catches it with her left hand. CatDog however is too focused on getting home for their party to notice; and as Shriek looks at Dog walking past, she accidentally drops for wrench on her nearby air pump and causes it to knock everything (including herself) over. As Shriek pulls herself together, she remarks to herself: "Nuts! I blew it! What doesn’t that mutt pay attention to me?" She then overhears Dog lovingly remark: "Oh, wow, Cat. That is the most beautiful thing I ever seen." We see that Dog is looking at a poster in a storefront window that’s advertising red meat and features a beautiful female canine model in a green dress posing beside a pile of red meat cuts on the floor and holding up a cut with a large cooking fork. Dog however was commenting on the red meat on the picture and not the model; but no one knows this other than Dog and the audience. Cat, who’s also looking at the poster adds in "You said it, buddy.", and then CatDog walks away. With CatDog gone, Shriek walks over and examines the poster Dog looked at and two other similar ones next to it that are advertising Beans and Broccoli; but she takes a closer look at the red meat advertisement Dog looked at. Not knowing Dog was commenting on the red meat and not the beautiful canine model, she examines her closely and concludes: "Hmph! She ain’t so hot!" She then wonders what the three models in the advertisements have that she doesn’t; and she then notices Fifi’s Dress Shop (that’s also shaped like a dress) located across the street and decides a dress is what she needs.

Meanwhile, at CatDog’s house, CatDog are unpacking their new "BBQ Baron", which needs assembly. Dog excitingly digs though the box and exclaims: "Hi-ho diggety! Let’s put it together! I wanna put it togehter! Assemble it! Now, now, now!" Dog frantically tries to force two dissimilar pieces together; but Cat stops him and tells him: "Patience, Dog. Patience. This is a finally crafted machine." Cat then takes out the manual and states: "These things must be handled... Delicately." Cat puts on a pair of glasses and begins reading and Dog works: "To assemble your 'BBQ Baron', begin by.. forcing tab 'A' into slot 'B'." Dog has the two corresponding parts in his hands, and he attempts to force said tab into said slot. Meanwhile, at the Greaser Dogs’ house, we find Shriek trying on her new dress and seeing how she looks in a mirror; she remarks: "Not bad." At that moment, Cliff and Lube come in whilst the middle of a conversation; Cliff is finishing something he’s saying to Lube: "...and that’s why they turned the hose on you." Lube pauses and then responds: "Oh." The two then focus their attention on their roommate in the middle of trying on her new dress and begin to laugh. Shriek asks them what’s so funny; and they respond in teasing sing-song (dancing a bit in place as they sing): "Shriek’s wearing a dress. Shriek’s wearing a dress. Na-na-na-na-na." Shriek asks: "So what?" Cliff laughingly responds: "Only girls wear dresses." An insulted Shriek then approaches her two roommates and shouts in their faces: "I am a girl!" Cliff and Lube look at each other for a quick moment and say "Huh?"; and then, apparently having not realized their roommate is female, despite previous episodes stating otherwise, they scream at each other in shock. They then pause for a moment, look at their roommate, and scream in shock again, then again, and finally run out of the house continuing to scream (leaving their roommate behind).

Back at CatDog’s house, Dog is attempting to force another part into place whilst continuing to listen to the instructions as Cat reads them out loud. Cat finishes: "..and finally insert rod 'Y' into slot 'Z', and you’re ready to start cooking with your 'BBQ Baron'!” Cat then looks up at his brother’s handiwork, but is shocked to find that Dog seemingly put everything in the wrong places and created a deformed edifice instead of a functional barbecue. Dog exclaims "Ta-da!" And Cat responds "Ta-da? Dog, that’s not a barbecue, that’s a monstrosity! [Cat's watch beeps and Cat looks at it] Oh, the party starts in half an hour!" Dog states: "I just followed your A to Z instructions." Cat, too frustrated to respond, simply walks over and restarts the job himself, murmuring to himself: "Never let a dog do a cat’s job I always say." Meanwhile, Shriek is walking around town, apparently questioning if a simple dress is really enough to prove she's the lovely woman she wants Dog to see her as; and she comes across another establishment (shaped like a human woman wearing a dress) called "Randolph’s Charm School and House of Beauty." She feels this is what she needs and states to herself: "I'll show them. I can turn into one of them high class dames." Shriek barges in though the front door and up to the front desk (pushing aside a woman putting on red lipstick and exclaiming to her "Out of my way, sister!") where the familiar and unforgettable Randolph is setting. Randolph tells Shriek: "Welcome to Randolph’s, what can I do for you, young man?" Being called a young man insults Shriek who then gets up on the desk and asserts to Randolph "I ain’t a young man! I'm a girl!" [Randolph’s hair is blown for a second by Shriek’s breath] Randolph pauses for a brief moment and politely responds: "Why-why-why, of course you are, [twitching a mustache] whatever you say." Shriek then pulls out the red meet advertisement from earlier (having taken it from the store), shows it to Randolph, and asks him to ”Make me into this." [pointing out the beautiful model in the picture] Randolph examines the model, thinks for a moment and then suggests his "Deluxe Eight Week Course." Shriek however demands she wants to be beautified in twenty minutes: "You've got twenty minutes, bright eyes!”

They go into another room and Randolph begins to lecture Shriek. Randolph states that a beautiful person has a beautiful voice, and has Shriek do an exercise to work on her voice and lips; he asks Shriek to repeat after him and follow a chart that depicts how Shriek should position her lips on each syllable. He demonstrates by softly and slowly reciting: "Hello. Enchanted to meet you." Shriek repeats the sentence loudly and rapidly, not even trying to position her lips according to the chart; Randolph dots a slightly irritated look on his face and thinks for a moment. Meanwhile, back at CatDog's house, Cat has just finished reassembling their barbecue; after he inserts the last piece, he walks over to Dog and states "Now that's how you make a barbecue." But we then cut to another angle and find Cat has assembled the same deformed edifice Dog had made earlier; Cat checks the instructions and finds that the diagram strangely slows exactly the same way he and his brother made (revealing Dog never did anything wrong in the first place). A surprised cat then states: "Well, that’s... how you make a barbecue." Back at Randolph's charm school, we find that Randolph is struggling to make progress in Shriek's voice and lips; he tries one more time and asks Shriek to repeat "Hello. Enchanted to meet you." softly and slowly like he does, but Shriek again doesn't even try (and a frustrated and exasperated Randolph clenches his teeth, pulls his ears and wipes his hand across his face). Randolph however manages to keep his cool, and after thinking for a moment decides to work on Shriek's make-up; he states they'll start with Shriek's eyes and then proceeds to examine Shriek's face. As he examines Shriek, he states to her: “You do have eyes, don’t you?” An impatient Shriek growers for a brief moment, grabs Randolph by his mustache and yells in his face: "Time's a-wasting, I've got a barbecue to get to!" Shriek releases Randolph’s mustache and Randolph readjusts it; he then states that this calls for "Drastic Measures".

Randolph and Shriek go into another room and Randolph proceeds to send Shriek though a long machine called the Beautifier 9000; he has her sit on the machine's conveyer belt and starts the machine (accompanied by a bell). As Shriek passes though the machine on it's belt, it starts off by covering Shriek with mud and then situating heat lamps over it so the mud will harden. A wooden mallet then lowers down to smash the hardened mud into pieces. A spinning brush (shaped like a paint roller) is then wiped across Shriek's head; and we get a brief outside view of the machine before going back inside. The machine then proceeds to dump water all over Shriek, wetting her hair. Robotic arms then rub two bars on soap in Shriek's hair and three more brushes (this time shipped like polishing wheels) lather it in and shape her hair into something abstract before multiple nozzles lower down and rinse out her hair. Two more robotic arms than grab Shriek's hair and wring it out. We then shift to the same outside view of the machine we briefly had earlier; and after another brief moment, we focus on one of the machine's gauges which goes from pointing to a symbol of a poodle to a symbol of a woman in a dress. We focus back inside the machine, and we see a hairdryer lower down and blow Shriek’s hair with a gust of hot air, drying her hair and leading to puff out. Multiple robotic arms lower down and proceed to brush and rearrange Shriek's hair and put curlers in it. They also put cucumbers on Shriek's eyes. A clamp is then lowered down, clenches Shriek's snout and pulls it out so that her lips pucker up. A paintbrush then lowers down and applies red lipstick on Shriek's lips, and another robotic arm lowers down and holds Shriek's nose, allowing a pair of scissors to trim Shriek's nose hairs. We cut to another outside view of the machine and see Shriek go though at least three other stages, before being spat out the machine's tiny other end; completely transformed (along with her dress) into an indeed alluring, high class dame that doesn’t fail to please. As we focus on Shriek (accompanied by a spotlight), she recites (this time softly and slowly, and positioning her lips properly) "Hello. Enchanted to meet you." Randolph, more than satisfied with his handiwork, responds with one of his trademark "I love it!" takes.

We then fast forward to CatDog's barbecue party and lots of Nearburg residents (including Rancid Rabbit, Mr. Sunshine, Mervis and Dunglap) have showed up; we also find that CatDog is able to cook with their new barbecue, despite it not looking like how a fictional barbecue should look. As Cat, dotting his chef’s hat and "Kiss the Cook" apron and cooking a hot dog by holding it next to one of the barbecue’s jets, Dog remarks that it’s a swell party. Cat replies: "Yep. There’s nothing like cooking with good ol' mother nature." Shriek then arrives; and Cat spots her from afar and he is immediately allured by her (but he doesn’t realize it’s Shriek). Cat stops cooking and rushes over to Shriek to introduce himself (still not realizing she's Shriek, despite getting a closer look); he kisses the back of her left hand, smiles lustfully and states: "Welcome to my... humble abode. May I get you absolutely anything in the world you could possibly want?" Shriek ignores Cat and focuses on Dog who’s munching on potato-chips, softly stating: "That is one hot dog." Cat cuts in front and states "A 'hot dog'? Oh, you’re wish is my command.", and he proceeds to prepare a hot dog for Shriek. While Cat is away, Shriek walks over to Dog and attempts to allure him; she slowly and softly states: "Enchanted to make your acquaintance." Dog however is apparently not east to allure like his brother and everyone else at the party is; he responds (with a mouth full of chips and not showing a particle of lust) "My 'acqua-wha'?" Shriek then flirtatiously flickers her eyelids in a further attempt to allure the Dog she loves; but Dog is not mesmerized and only assumes something must be wrong with her eyes: “Hey’s something wrong with your eyes lady (and apparently, like his brother, he doesn’t realize she’s Shriek either)?” Dog’s reply irritates Shriek and she nearly looses her cool; she angrily responds "No!" in her regular loud and rapid tone before correcting herself in her soft and alluring tone: "I-I mean, no. Thank you for asking, kind sir." Dog chuckles and replies: "I'm not a 'kind sir', I'm a dog."

Unfortunately for Shriek, her strategy begins to backfire. A mesmerized Winslow walks over with a bouquet of flowers and lustfully states to her: "Hey, how about you and me blowing this, pop-stand doll?" Winslow's advance toward Shriek (not realizing she’s Shriek either) is short lived as Rancid Rabbit drives him into the ground with a hoe and proceeds to advance upon Shriek himself by steeling WInslow’s bouquet and introducing himself (he also doesn't realize she's Shriek): "Well, howdy-do my little kumquat. I'm Rancid Rabbit, mayor of this little burg." Rancid’s advance on Shriek is also short lived as Sunshine comes up behind him and flips the hoe up into Rancid's face, sending him into a bench with a round desert on it and launching it into the air. Mr. Sunshine offers Shriek (again, not realizing it’s her) a burger he's holding, stating: "A burger for a beauty." But his advance is also cut short when the airborne round desert falls into him and the hoe he's he'd holding up, heaving them tied up. Mr. Sunshine responds with one of his trademark monotone "Ow!" takes. Shriek then tries again to advance toward Dog: She looks at Dog and again flirtatiously flickers her eyelids in hopes of alluring him. But again, Dog thinks it’s because of a problem with her eyes: "Yeah, you should really see a doctor about those eyeses." Shriek lustfully asks Dog: "Would you like to personally examine them?" It seems to start to just working; but Cat pushes his brother aside and proceeds to give Shriek the hot dog he was making for her and states to her: "I'd be happy to look into your eyes forever." A frustrated Shriek again nearly reverts to her loud self by telling Cat to "Back off y—-" before correcting herself "...you silly little kitty." [and she knocks him onto the ground with her arms; Cat however is still allured].

Just then however, Cliff and Lube then arrive to crash CatDog’s barbecue. Cliff asks Cat: ”Hey, Cat-jerk! How come we didn't get invited to your little get-together?" Lube adds in: "And the party thing... with the, um... food?" Cliff angrily goes on: "That makes us feel very upset [and he picks up Cat by the chest with his left hand and gears up to punch with his right hand]! And you know what happens when we get upset!" Cat shakes in fear and holds up his arms. But before they can proceed to hurt Cat, Shriek then walks over to them to show them how beautiful and feminine she can be; they are indeed allured and mesmerized by their roommate's radiating beauty (Cliff: "I hope you didn't hurt yourself when you fell out of heaven, my little angel."), but they don’t realize it’s her either, even after she tugs on her roommate’s nostrils (Cliff: "Sassy; just the way I like 'em."). Cat states to Cliff: "I saw her first." then asks Shriek: "Right, my darling?" Shriek however realizes that even though she proved to herself that she can be as beautiful, feminine and alluring as the next supermodel, she can't prove any of that, nor anything else about herself to everyone else if they don't recognize it's her; and in frustration, she rips off her dress (she apparently was wearing her regular clothes underneath) and reforms her hair back to her trademark hairstyle, screaming out loud in frustration as she does this. She then irritatingly tells everyone, in the regular way she has always talked: "It's me, you bone-heads!" Everyone is shocked that the most beautiful woman at the barbecue was none other than one of the greaser dogs; and Cat, shocked at the notion he was allured by and flirting with one of his greatest enemies, freaks out and faints. Cliff and Lube are also shocked and faint as well.

As the rest of the partygoers continue to stare in bewilderment, Dog asks Shriek: "How come you were wearing that dress, Shriek? You looked weird." Shriek asks: "What do you mean weird?" Dog replies: "I mean you look much better this way." A flattered Shriek poses and asks: "You think so?" Dog replies: ”Yeah, before you looked like a girl.", and he begins to laugh (apparently not realizing Shriek is a female either). Shriek tells Dog "I am a girl!"; and Dog, realizing this and the fact that Shriek was all this time trying to advance on him, screams, freaks out and faints. As Shriek turns to everyone else, they (apparently also realizing for the first time that Shriek is a girl) begin freak out and faint as well. Shriek again asserts to everyone "I am a girl!" and the last of the partygoers faint. With everyone unconscious and flat on the ground, Shriek loudly claims: "This is the worst barbecue party ever!" She then takes her leave, continuing to assert her gender and feminism: "I am a girl!" CatDog's barbecue collapses into pieces as Shriek says this. As Shriek walks off into the distance and continues to assert her gender and feminism to everyone by repeating at the top of her lungs "I am a girl!" over and over, the entire cityscape collapses. Then, for the ending, we get a view of the whole planet earth and we hear Shriek scream her very loudest "I! Am! A! Girl!" and the camera zooms in on the planet for a brief moment before it zooms outward and leaves a blank screen behind, ending the episode.

Trivia

• The person's death Rancid talks about at the party is Albert Schweitzer, a real-life person who was a theologian, missionary and philosopher.

Errors

• In one frame before Cat is about to examine Shriek's eyes, you can find two copies of Cat's nose.
• Somehow, nobody realized Shriek was a girl until this episode.