DADWARP

Creators: Wash Phillips, Wally Lane
Age rating: Everyone
LUKE DEFOE, 10, fears his salesman Dad, MIKE (PTA Father of the Year) is dealing drugs to make ends meet. Luke secretly follows Mike to work, finds he works in the future, as a space prirate!
Project collaboration: By Permission
Full synopsis
Synopsis: DADWARP, the tale, takes place in but 3 days' time, recounted by Luke DeFoe, aged 10.

PTA Father Of The Year Mike DeFoe shows up late to receive his award, but he’s a charmer and people cut him some slack. Where he’s been is not known, exactly.

As guests celebrate at the DeFoe home Mike’s birthday party following the award, teenage daughter Justine (science-driven older sister, 13) privately worries that her loving salesman dad secretly deals drugs to make financial ends meet.

Unconvinced (but disturbed) and ready to defend his dad’s reputation, brother Luke secretly passes up his school bus next morning and follows his dad’s private commute to work...wherever that might take, him.

It starts on The Garbage Planet, where Luke discovers Mike is not only a here-and-now humble peddler but also works in parts of the universe far, far away, as a privateer for beneficent aliens he terms The Cinema Galaxy (CG). He calls them that, privately, 'cause they resemble famous movie people (talk about cameo ops!). They'd once rescued Mike--in Eighteenth Century America where some villainous marauder aliens (The Gravers) had originally snatched him from the sailing ship he crewed on. The CG helped him find "normal" life.

They're personified by Top Hand, an alien benefactor of the Cinema Galaxy modeled on Clint Eastwood, riding in like the cavalry in a John Wayne movie.Now Mike does their dirty work, saving less-astute races all over the quadrant at the CG's behest.

At the moment, with the pressing mission and its unchangeable timeline, Mike's unable to Leave his son behind or return him home. Telling Luke with cross-your-heart secrecy/sincerity of Mike's origins, he reveals what's ahead this trip. Luke’s stowed away on an intergalactic adventure he could hardly imagine, putting his everyday life in peril.

Starting from The Garbage Planet, Mike, Luke and The Bloids (funny inflatable robot assistants never seen before on film) save helpless aliens--Steveniads--powerless before a race of reverse-Robin Hoods known as the Reeksyariomalstanoxx ("Reeks" for short, and they desereve the moniker!). These same attackers are led by a counter-mercenary resembling Madonna (the rockstar).
Later, Mike, Luke and the Bloids fight off other space marauders--the aforementioned Gravers, bent on taking back Mike’s Garbage-covertible space/time vessel (which was theirs originally)...and Mike himself!

After receiving praise and rewards from The CGs--via Top Hand personally, Mike and Luke (again with The Bloids) return to their world undisturbed—they think. Unaware they’ve been followed by the Gravers, dad and son deal with continuing hometown problems of a “friend”—a jealous cop--who also thinks Mike a criminal. Plus a potential divorcee neighbor/fitness freak who wants Mike, er, to let her, um, train him. (Both are running subplots.)

Unexpectedly Mike and Luke must save their local neighborhood, their town, possibly even humanity from those persistent space marauders, Gravers, arrived in the guise of a fantastic circus. People near and within the Big Top are “zombied out,” unable to move to save themselves from the spectacle.

When Mike's trapped by the badguys, Luke calls up The Bloids, who come to the rescue in drunken fashion, having been mixed-up in their re-inflation by the newbie, Luke.

Eventually, more help in the wrapup comes from Top Hand and the gang, pretending to be a movie company on an night time shoot, a ruse which works convincingly on the crowds both in and out the disappearing Big Top to explain their missing time.

It’s later revealed that the DeFoe’s part-time dental tech/mom/wife Marcia was pivotal in dad’s cosmic adventures all along—her secret. And no one had a flippin' clue. Holy Wongo!

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