Another one of our instagram followers, from_delphine sent in a question last night. She asked: “Dear Dedes… do you like to go outside and feel the wind on your skin?” Lapdog wanted to cry when she heard that question. She would just love to go outside and romp around the garden. But all she could do is jump off the stage and look out the window. Okay, it is raining heavily today, but that is not the main reason that holds her back. “To feel the wind would be amazing” she said dolefully, “but we Dedes are very sensitive to the sun and we have to stay out of it as much as possible.” Then she admitted quietly, “sadly the only wind I feel is the one that rumbles in my tummy.”
It was a sad day for the Dedes. They had received no questions whatsoever. No one, absolutely no one wanted to know more about them. Mouse and Detail conferred with the external consultant Millie again. She was adamant, that the show must go on and suggested the floor should be open to the other Dedes to ask questions. This morning Devil rounded up all the contestant on stage. They are supposed to work as a panel this week. Any one of the contestants can answer the questions if they feel like it.
“Here is a question for you” said Devil “what are we actually doing here, if no one wants to know more about us.” He had hardly closed his mouth when all hell broke loose. The contestants got agitated “OMG” said one, “Oh dear, we are still no bodies” the other. “There is no base for our exist….” the next. Granddad Max found the reactions too emotional. “Shush. We will discuss the question” he said and then turned to Devil “and we will come back to you.”
Then he shuffled everyone off stage into the kitchen for lunch. It was a very loud and long lunch.
Finally they came back onto the stage. They had decided Granddad Max, the eldest, would be their spokesperson. He stepped forward and of course the audience expected to hear their reason for being there. Granddad sighed and said “To be honest, we have no idea! The question is one you have to ask the artist!” Devil wasn’t happy with their cop-out. “You have to do better than that! The artist is not in the competition. I can’t ask her.”
The first week of the competition had taken it’s toll. Devil desperately needed a sleep-in on his day off. He is a little disappointed about the calibre of the contestants this time. In the last Super Dede Competition the contestants were much more willing to talk about themselves. This bunch here seems to be quite withdrawn. Devil had to find out the hard way, that the job of MC is much more demanding, when the contestants are not forthcoming. So yesterday he put his sleeping mask on and stayed in bed all day, not caring what else happened in the world.
Mouse on the other hand wants to make the competition a success. Instead of taking it easy on her day off, she spent all day yesterday to organise a retreat for the management team. It was rather short notice, but Mouse thought the three should learn from the first week and apply their findings to the second week. She was overjoyed, when she managed to secure the external consultant Millie. Millie was hanging around a dysfunctional workplace for a long time and had observed the most outrages things there. She was bound to offer invaluable and unbiased advice from the outside.
They met in the dining room. “Look a the contestants” said Devil to fill the cow in “There is a clown hiding behind his mask, a gender-fluid little dog, a sick old codger, a too gentle devil and an undervalued servant.” Millie listend, swaying her head a little and said “What’s wrong with that? That should make for a very interesting competition.” Then she focussed on Devil and said after looking straight into his eyes for a tad too long. “Can I have a look at your neck, is it by any chance red?”
It seems to be the day of the devils. At first light, lil’Devil, the the Super Dede Competition cheerleader, was dancing around the house like there is no tomorrow. We were all wondering if the competition had finished early or what. Turns out it was the regram contest that had finished. Last week in the post working hard on it the management team decided to make lil’Devil the cheerleader for the Super Dede Competition. While he was chuffed about the honor he soon found out that he would have to leave home if someone reposted the picture. For a week he was holding his breath, a hard thing to do for any devil. His job performance wasn’t that great either. You can barely see him in the pictures of the competition holding up the signs with the names of the contestants. Anyway, the offer is off the table now and no one took it up. That means the lil’Devil can stay with us. And while he will be a bit upset with the management team for some time, he will survive and happily do his job for the rest of the competition.
Today’s contestant is also a devil, Milky Bar Devil. He skulked on stage and didn’t know what to say. In the end the MC prompted him. “You said in your statement that you want to be in the competition to learn about how to become ruthless. Isn’t that a strange thing to say?” Milky Bar Devil looked surprised. “You of all Dedes should know what is expected of a devil, but it simply doesn’t come naturally to me.” Then he told the audience that he is studying hard and reads all the books. But when he applies all the devilish things he learned in theory, everybody just laughs at him. “I am such a useless devil! I will never fulfill the expectations of my parents. I will never be a success in their eyes.”
“Mhm” said Devil, “not sure if this competition is the right therapy for you.”
This week the contestants have to talk about themselves and Snippedy had a rather bad start. When Mouse took the rubbish out she found the clown lolling about with a bottle of schnapps behind the theatre . “You know,” Mouse said to console him, “it’s okay, not everyone wants to talk about themselves.” But Snippedy felt sorry for himself. “Yes they all do” he said recalcitrantly. “I am the only one who can’t. I stuffed up big time” and he took another gulp from the bottle.
“Well” said Mouse resolutely “this is certainly not the solution!” She grabbed the bottle and chucked it into the bin together with her other rubbish and left a gobsmacked Snippedy standing there.
Meanwhile, in the theatre Devil had to figure out who is next. There were two contestants with equal numbers: Lapdog and Granddad Max. Devil didn’t put much thought in it. “Okay, ladies first” he said and made a gesture towards Lapdog. Lapdog looked around first and then came up to the stage. “I guess you mean me” she said to Devil. “If you want me to go first, I would have appreciated it if you’d said beauty before age or something.”
Devil looked at her in astonishment. “Aren’t you a lady?” he asked.
“No I am not,” she said quite bruskly. “Just because I’m pretty doesn’t mean I’m female.” Devil didn’t know what to say and looked her up and down. “Well” he said quietly and hoped the contestant wouldn’t hear it “we Dedes are heads only, so I can’t look into your pants.”
Lapdog has obviously had this discussion before. “We Dedes still have a gender and I consider myself gender fluid.”
“What is that supposed to mean? God only made two genders” said Devil at a loss. Lapdog laughed out loud. “That is too much to discuss here in a talent show” she said. “All I can say is that in my profession it is very beneficial to be able to emphasise with both genders equally. And I can.”
“Okay we’ll leave it then” said Devil, happy to conclude the subject. After all the Dedes embrace diversity. “Can you tell us something about yourself then?”
During the competition Saturday will be the day of rest. So Devil is soaking in the bath tub today. Not entirely voluntarily though. Mouse made him have one because he has a terrible sulphur smell about him, and you know that is a horrible rotten egg smell. From next Monday on he will be the MC for the Super Dede Competition and in this capacity he has to get close to the other Dedes. I think they will be all grateful to Mouse. Mouse herself doesn’t have a day of rest. On Instagram she made a little film, reminding everyone that commenting on your favourite contestant will give them a better chance. It is really interesting how these different media work. She really wanted to try if a video makes a difference and it was the first one she took with the smart phone.
With the competition next week everything will change slightly. While the Instagram followers voted for the contestants, the blog reader will get the full story each day. The Instagram readers will only get the news clips. Before the votes closed we already got our first complaint. One of the contestants accused the organisation team of negligence. But he will withdraw his complaint if he makes it into the finals. So you have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happend.
Devil had to burn the midnight oil yesterday. When he first saw the list of applicants he picked the five, maybe six Dedes, he thought would make it through the preliminaries. As MC for the competition he has to do some background research on all the contestants. Never in a million years would he have thought that the old man Granddad Max would make it into the competition. But this guy is still holding on to the lead. So now Devil has to catch up on research. Unfortunately, because Granddad Max is so old he has the longest history and this means much more work for Devil.
There are still two contestants yet to be introduced to the Instagram readers tomorrow. As already mentioned, Granddad Max is leading the table at the moment with a total of 65 votes, followed by Lapdog, who has no votes on the blog, but 60 on Instagram. Snippedy the clown and Chambermaid also have 60. Looking at it from a different angle, so far it looks like we will have experience, fun and beauty in the competition. I must say it bodes for a very good contest.
Ah well, it could all change by tomorrow. So if you haven’t voted yet, choose Super Dede 16 from the menu, look at the contestants and vote in the poll at the bottom. And don’t worry, I cannot trace who voted and you won’t get any unsolicited emails if you vote. It is all plain Dede dada fun.
Mouse isn’t particularly patient when it comes to campaigns. She wants to have results, poff, poff, poff. No fluffing around. Naturally she was very disappointed when there were only a few votes yesterday and she got her management team together to discuss how they could rustle up more vistors. In the afternoon, they agreed on a strategy to sacrifice one of the lil’Dedes for a regram action. They invited the Lil’Devil into the theatre for a photoshoot and told him he would be the cheerleader for the Super Dede Competition. He happily agreed, but I think they forgot to tell him that he will have to leave the Dede household once the cheerleading contract is over. This campaign is on Instagram only, and everybody who regrams the picture goes into the draw to win this little fella. The picture went up last night, but no-one has yet taken up the offer. If he is lucky, Lil’Devil will stay with us. :)
As we all know, Rob D Light hasn’t got a job. He was sent by the Dede employment agency to help out Mouse and gain some work experience. Mouse gave him the task of keeping track of the comments our readers make. This is a very important job as every single comment goes into the draw for a signed copy of first Dede puppet book, Hermit’s web. So if you comment five times, Rob D Light has to write out five little dockets and put them into a hat, from where the winner is drawn after the competition ends. Mouse gave him a big baseball cap, though Rob used his initiative and changed it for a little Leprechaun hat. “That is big enough for the few comments we’ve got so far” he told Mouse. Mouse just sighed and said “I hope you are wrong.”
We have also had the first upset in the competition. There must be a few older fans amongst our readers. Yesterday Alley Cat and Granddad Max were introduced to the Instagram readers and Granddad Max, who is in second place on the blog votes, has taken the lead when his likes from Instagram are added. Who would have thought! Snippedy and Chambermaid are hot on his heels, so “run old fella, run”.
Mouse was very keen this morning to find out how the first day went. She doesn’t like to look at the blog on her mobile phone, so she jumped on the laptop before breakfast…. and the silly computer did it’s silly updates. She got so frustrated that she nearly chucked it in. She wrote a post for Instagram, telling the readers that there is no update and just as she was about to hit the publish button, the computer made its welcome noise. Grrr.
So, she deleted her angry post and hopped back onto the computer to check out what happened on the blog. Nothing much. Grrrr again.
“Clearly our mistake, ” said Devil “we have let the blog slide too much.”
“That is history. We try to make amends here, aren’t we” said Mouse and analysed what she saw. On the blog all contestants were introduced at once and Snotty Nosed Prince has clearly taken the lead. There are six Dedes with the same amount of votes (1! isn’t that sad) and two who have no votes whatsoever, Lapdog and Loudmouth. “I know how that feels” said Snippedy, the clown, secretly smirking away as he knew this time he will be safe, at least he has some votes. In the last competition he didn’t get past the preliminaries. He had nothing, zilch!
On Instagram only two contestants were introduced yesterday: Chambermaid and Snippedy. Both showed equal amounts of likes this morning, 57 to be precise. So with their one vote from the blog each, they are currently sharing the lead. But the two Dedes that were introduced this morning are catching up fast.
If you haven’t voted yet, Mouse has set-up a special page here on the blog (available from the menu) where you can read about all the contestants and vote. The Dedes do appreciate your support!
This week is a preliminary round and you are asked to vote for your favourite puppet or puppets, those you would like to be contestants in the Super Dede Competition. Of course, not all Dedes are in favour of the competition and Detail has done a great job of rustling up these 10 brave Dedes to choose from. The five with the highest score will go on to compete. The others will be sent home. To help you with your decision the ten puppets were asked to briefly state why they are here.
It will be a bit tricky establishing the winner of the preliminary round, as the competition runs on Instagram, Facebook and this blog. Mouse will simply add the Instagram and Facebook likes to the poll result on the blog. We have until next Saturday to establish who will become contestants.
You can vote for more than one puppet and please, please, please tell all your friends to vote too :)
The Dedes work impromptu and they appreciate any comments and suggestions. We are all very excited about what is going to happen in the next four weeks. All comments will go into the draw for a signed copy of the first Dede puppet book Hermit’s Web or the few friends I need, I handcraft myself.
Now give a big hand for the applicants!
(In alphabetical order)
Alley Cat
“I am here because it wasn’t cool enough for Cool Cat, but we felines need a representative in the cast.”
Chambermaid
“I want to be in the competition because I am sick of tidying up after all the other Dedes.”
Granddad Max
“I am old but I am not dead. We seniors have something to say.”
Milky Bar Devil
“I am a devil in training and I want to learn how to become ruthless.”
Lapdog
“I am here because I’m soooo prettaay.”
Loudmouth
“Honestly, I am the only Dede who can sing. This is a singing contest, isn’t it?”
Snippedy
“I didn’t make it last time, so I’m trying again.”
Snotty Nosed Prince
“The king said I should experience what the commoners enjoy.”
Sunny
“I want to be an artist and the prize money might set me up.”
Top Dog
“I will win. I am a joker, I simply trump them all.”
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