Oh, my god, we have customers? What's going on?
Why are there hipsters here? Are we selling stupid hats...
and telling them they're more talented than they actually are?
No, that's already a store. It's called fedorable.
You've been working so hard to get us customers in...
i wanted to contribute by finding a way to get in the neighborhood hipsters.
So here's our new flyer.
You made up a new flyer without talking to me about it?
I renamed all the cupcakes after people from the '90s.
"Max's homemade cupcakes. We've got all your flavor flavs."
Hipsters love '90s nostalgia...
more than they love pretending not to love anything.
"Come in and lick a beavis.
Eat a butthead."
The pistachio is now called the Dennis rodman...
because it's such a dumbass flavor.
Cute. Wait, what's going on over there? Why are all those cupcakes smashed?
Those are the Nancy kerrigans.
I don't know if it's in good taste to make fun of her tragedy.
- I sold eight of them. - Screw her. You're a genius. Heh.
Ooh, ooh. Can I name one?
How about we call the day-olds the Hugh hefners?
That's not '90s.
He's in his 90s and he's stale and hard.
Can I get a Jonathan Taylor Thomas to go and two of the spice girls?
Any one but baby.
- Sure. - Dude, you should come...
to the '90s trivia contest every Monday at the bar bar.
You could win, like, big money.
And then I could pay for the lobotomy I'd need...
to forget that I ever participated in a hipster contest in a bar.
[Caroline chuckling]
Cute hat. You're very talented.
I'm putting this flyer up in the window.
Oh. Look, there's a street performer trying to get people to dance...
- with his marionette outside our shop. - Uh-oh.
Not cool. No hipster wants to crump with a puppet.
See, he just chased them away.
We'll ask him to move but we have to be nice.
Nice? Nice. Oh, yeah, that's the thing you are to the welfare lady...
while your mom's in the bedroom hiding the new TV.
[Accordion music playing on stereo]
Hi, how are you? We own this cupcake...
Shh. Not while he's dancing.
Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like me to wait?
Oh, this dude's a serial killer.
Oh. Uh....
Do you want me to...?
Yup. Total serial killer.
It's just a matter of time till we're hung on strings in his basement.
And I probably just got puppet herpes.
[Music stops]
Well, I hope you enjoyed your kiss with charming Pierre.
Now, if you wouldn't mind.
Oh, Pierre's a prostitute?
It's weird for him to do it in the open, but if he can't afford a car, he can't.
Oh, you're one of those. A woman without wonder.
Not true. In fact, I'm wondering how you manage to pay rent.
Okay, could you two just move along? I have another show in five minutes.
That was a show? Look, you can't do your little skits here.
Heh. She doesn't mean to be negative.
She's right. I was planning to be all positive till your doll raped her leg.
Pierre is not a doll, okay? He's a marionette.
Hand-carved by me. And I don't do skits.
Okay? I received a national endowment for my work.
What? The government pays for stuff like this...
- and I can't get my back tooth fixed? - Heh.
Well, I, for one, really appreciate the art of puppetry.
- I can tell you do. And so can Pierre. - Oh....
You know he doesn't just approach anybody.
I'm Caroline. This is Max. And you are?
My stage name is j. Petto. Heh-heh.
Oh, so cute. Geppetto, like Pinocchio's father.
No, it's j-period-petto.
Disney owns the rights to the name geppetto...
so once again the poor starving artist gets screwed.
So sad. Can you move?
See, this is our cupcake shop and you're blocking the entrance.
Uh, this is a public space and I know my rights.
Showtime.
[Humming]
I was trying to be nice, but you are the rudest puppeteer I've ever met.
I'm including shari Lewis...
who told my father to shove it on my fifth birthday. Let's go, Max.
Hey, doll man.
You don't wanna mess with us.
I make one call to the cops, they do a background check...
and I'm pretty sure you'd go from j. Petto to j. Petto-phile.
Miss, I dropped my David Hasselhoff.
Well, it's not the first time he's been on the floor.
Hey, you can't talk to me like that.
I studied puppetry in Paris at the palais... aah!
[Caroline & Max gasping]
Oh, my god. He slipped on David Hasselhoff.
- Are you okay? - Yeah. God, I'm fine, I'm fine.
I'm just a little embarrassed.
Oh, no. No. I landed on Pierre.
Pierre!
Here, have a seat.
Would either of you like a coffee or a free cupcake?
No, I'm just gonna pack up and go. Thank you.
- Come back any time for a free cupcake. - But no need to bring your dolls.
They're not dolls. I'm a man!
It's crazy how many hipsters came into our shop today from our new flyers.
We ran completely out of all the butterfinger buttafuocos...
the Joeys and even the Mary Jo's, which I did not think would sell.
I reworked the smashed Nancy kerrigans and called it the Mary Jo.
Oh, girls, I'm so happy for you.
You know, I remember when my business first started to take off.
The first thing I did was to buy the little village that I grew up in...
and then burn it to the ground.
I was just so angry they wouldn't let me be a cheerleader.
No, baby, that was the movie Carrie. You fell asleep watching it last night.
Oh.
Yeah, I gotta stop watching movies late at night.
Once, for a whole year, i thought I framed Roger rabbit.
[Bell dings]
I'm looking for the owners of Max's homemade cupcakes.
Oh. That's me. Wow, word is really spreading.
- How can I help you? - You've been served.
Max, I just got served.
Did he go after your bangs? Because that's where I'd start.
This is a lawsuit. It says, "Max's homemade cupcakes is being sued...
for injuries sustained in our shop by myron shales a.K.A. J. Petto."
- Max, it's that puppet guy. - He's suing us?
We should be suing him for gross....
I don't know what the legal words are, but just for being gross.
Can't afford to be sued. We can't afford the lawyer...
on those bus ads who has a gavel in one hand and a chicken in the other.
I hope everything was satisfactory. Can I get you ladies anything else?
Like a strong work ethic.
Han, it's not funny. We're being sued.
Okay. Let me see those.
I studied law in Korea, but I never made it through graduation.
I realized it wasn't my passion and I pulled out.
Did they know it was in?
Let's see. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Yeah, you're being sued.
What law school did you go to? Cal state the obvious?
Did you graduate magna come rarely?
I told you, I pulled out.
But don't worry, accidents like this happen in stores all the time.
That's why all businesses have insurance.
Well, not all businesses.
How could you not have insurance?
You need to get protection and I'm not talking about condoms.
We're not idiots, han.
We had the discussion. I was like, "we need insurance."
She was like, "we have money?" "No."
She was like, "chances something will happen?"
"A million to one." She was like, "let's get gummy bears."
I was like, "okay. We'll talk about this another time."
And here we are talking about it now.
Remember, we have no choice. We have to get him to drop this lawsuit.
Okay, 3b. Here, this is the puppet guy's apartment.
You say puppet guy, I say serial killer.
You say apartment, I say the brightest dot on the Megan's law website.
Max, that is not charming.
Stay on message. We're charming, we're sorry...
We're drunk. Well, I am. How else do you think I'm going to pull off charming?
Let's get in and out. That puppet creeped me out. I don't wanna see it again.
Oh, I am not drunk enough for this.
I've never been drunk enough for this.
Is j. Petto home?
I'm kind of surprised. I did not think he'd have a girlfriend.
Hello. Well, I hope you enjoyed meeting yvette.
She plays the lute, you know?
- Oh, yes, she was very charming. - And small.
She must make your penis look huge.
I'm sorry?
Charming, Max. Charming.
- Hi, we stopped by to bring cupcakes. - Hi.
We feel so bad about what happened. Can we come in for a minute?
Um.... well, I wasn't expecting company, but come in.
We're all just hanging out.
Caroline. Oh. Oh.
This isn't weird. This isn't weird at all.
It's like we're in a dead body car wash.
I had a nightmare that I had a nightmare like this once.
Just so you know, I'm not allowed to talk about the lawsuit.
Well, I'm not allowed to talk about how I really feel right now.
Ha. Speaking of the lawsuit, you seem well, you know, physically.
Which is great because the suit said you had a shattered arm and a broken hip.
Oh. Yeah, I'm not suing you for my shattered arm and hip. It's....
It's for Pierre's.
I crushed his little body when I fell.
He must have thrown himself under my body to protect my fall.
- Dexter, party of one. - Shh.
I have to rotate his arm...
and hold it every 15 minutes to get his full range of motion back.
That's what the sling's about. I know he's not alive.
- Do you? - Heh.
We're very sorry for his injury, but this is absurd.
You can't sue us because your puppet broke.
Yes, I can. This puppet is my livelihood and he's heavily insured.
Great, the puppet has insurance and we don't.
- Max. - What? You don't have insurance?
You have a business, but no insurance?
Look, we can't go to court. It would wreck us.
Can we leave the lawyers out and come up with a creative solution?
I mean, you're clearly creative. Look, you even made a skeleton king.
That's not a skeleton king. That's pazuzu, prince of darkness.
Let me just put this out there...
because we should really move things along and also, I'm afraid.
How much is it gonna take to make this go away?
You wanna take a second to consult your roommates?
I think I saw a lawyer doll.
He is not a lawyer. He is a maître d'. And a damn good one.
You women just don't get it.
This is why I broke up with my Toronto-based girlfriend over Skype.
Right?
Thousand dollars by Monday. But if she makes another comment...
about my intricate hand-carved marionettes being dolls...
[Whistles]
it goes up.
Fine. A thousand dollars. And no strings.
- Except for the ones on all... - Max, don't say it. Heh.
Valley of the dolls, Chucky, bride of Chucky...
hello, Dolly!, dollywood and the Dolly lama. Oh....
Those are the things I was holding in. Oh, wait.
Doll and oates.
Now what? How are we gonna get a thousand extra dollars by Monday?
Wait, Max, we can go to that bar and exploit your special gifts.
If I have to strip, I have to strip.
Not that kind of bar. The hipster trivia bar.
Can't I just strip? At least I'd still have my dignity.
It's all here. A thousand dollars. So that's it. No more lawsuit.
Actually, that's not it. As it turns out, we're gonna need 500 more. Heh.
For what? Did your dues for the serial killers' union...
and the pedophile guild come up at the same time this year?
Pierre is in crisis.
But his psychiatrist could tell you more about that.
If there's a psychiatrist who hasn't locked him up...
i don't trust his opinion.
[In deep voice] I'm Dr. pangloss.
Pierre broke more than his hip in your cupcake shop.
He broke his spirit.
He lost his dream.
He no longer wants to perform.
This is where he cuts us in half and sews my top to your bottom.
On the plus side, we'll look amazing.
[In normal voice] Yeah, well, you heard it.
Pierre is ready to give up his art and he needs a little more money.
Forget it, puppet nuts. We don't have 500 dollars.
We don't have 500 anything.
Well, think about it.
[Kettle whistling]
That's my tea kettle. Yvette?
Ugh. I'll do it.
I'm not so sure the hostility is quite working...
so you wait in the hall and I'll try to talk some sense into him.
You are the only person in the world...
who would insist on being alone with this man, but okay.
Please, just listen. We are broke.
To get more money, we'd have to strip.
Well, gigi and Lana started off as strippers...
and now they're in the folies bergère. So....
You know, even for a middle-aged puppeteer, you're a freak.
See you in court!
Nothing. He's gonna sue us and we have no other tricks up our sleeve.
Well, maybe not my sleeve, but how about my coat?
- Pierre? - Right there.
I'm sorry, we're not open today.
I know you took him. Give me back Pierre.
We're not open. We've had a terrible tragedy.
Well, not us but a new friend of ours had a gruesome accident...
and we are just devastated.
You wouldn't be that cruel.
Relax. I could never be that cruel. But Max could.
Well, well, well.
Look who it is, Pierre. Your lover, j. Petto.
He's not gay.
He had a girlfriend named Lulu.
She was a courtesan in the court of a French king.
They broke up over a brief flirtation she had with yvette.
And I know they're not alive!
Now, what do you say we stick to the original no-strings deal?
Because if you don't, Max will show you what no strings really means.
Do it. Go. Bring it.
I can always restring him. I'm a master of my craft.
Yes, we thought you'd say that. So you leave us no choice. Max.
Petto: What?
I'm not changing my mind. And I'm coming back with the police.
Oh, I wouldn't get the cops involved.
Now that your boy here is in a compromising situation.
[Speaking indistinctly]
How dare you!
And she does not like the feel of a condom!
- You two are sick! - Hey. We don't judge.
We think whatever two consenting dolls or maybe three consenting dolls do....
And it's gonna be bad because he's a grower, not a shower.
And once a few of these pics are posted online...
there goes your children's party business.
Now, call it quits and you can delete these pics.
Fine. Yes. Okay, you win. You win. You win.
Oh, we're not falling for your word again.
- If you want your doll back... - For the last time, he is not a doll!
Bring us a notarized letter saying you release Max's homemade cupcakes...
of all further legal action. We'll give you back Pierre perfectly intact.
Minus his virginity, of course.
But don't worry, you'll still have yours.
Okay. I'll be back as soon as I can. Ugh.
Thirty years in the cutthroat world of puppets...
and I'm undone by two crazy cupcake bitches.
Did you hear that? Thirty years.
Thirty years of following his dream and he's still broke?
Is that gonna be us, Max? Is our dream just as stupid as puppets?
Sorry, Pierre, I forgot you were here.
He's sound asleep. Three-ways really take it out of you.
Here, dress her. She has to get a cab. She'd rather sleep in her own bed.
And do you know why we're not gonna turn into him?
Because 30 years ago, when j. Petto said, "I'm gonna be a puppeteer"...
he didn't have a friend to tell him:
"You shouldn't do that. It's a stupid idea."
Unlike him, you have me to tell you when it's a stupid idea.
I have you to tell me not to mace myself...
no matter how bad I wanna know how it feels.
So the cupcake shop isn't a stupid idea?
No, and it's actually starting to take off.
Because no one embraces a stupid idea like a hipster.
But, Max, we do need insurance.
- But do we have the money? - No.
- Chances someone else is gonna fall? - A million to one.
I like those odds.
- You know, this is a really cute dress. - Forget the dress. Look at his cute pants.
We really should give them to han.