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STUDENT 1: I feel like getting drunk.

SAM: What good would that do?

STUDENT 1: At least I could throw up.

KIMBERLY: You always do.

[SALLY CATHCART, a Judy Garland look-alike, enters boisterously in cheerleading garb, carrying pom-poms high. She has not heard the news.]

SALLY: Hey, gang—what’s there to be so blue about? It’s springtime!

KIMBERLY: Where have you been, Sally?

SALLY: Cheerleading practice. [A sample cheer] With an S, with a W, with an E, E, T! With a B, with an R, with an E, A, D! Sweetbread! Sweetbread! Sweetbread!

SAM: The college is bankrupt, Sally.

SALLY: Oh, no!

SAM: [Handing her a paper] It’s in the Daily Pancreas.

KIMBERLY: They wouldn’t dare print it, if it weren’t true.

SALLY: [Reading] “Bankrupt! Closing its doors forever in two weeks’ time.” The most innocent college in the world.

SAM: Drop your pom-poms, Sally. Nothing to cheer for here anymore.

SALLY: I won’t drop them yet, Sam—but I’ll carry them low.

CHORUS: [Singing as one, a rich chord]

Lowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

[JERRY RIVERS, a Mickey Rooney look-alike and president of the student body, enters with his stepfather, FRED LEGHORN, shrewd hayseed king of the mechanized chicken industry.]

SAM: Hey—it’s Jerry Rivers, the president of the student body.

JERRY: Gang—this is my mother’s fifth and possibly final husband, Fred Leghorn, the largest producer of chickens in the world.

SALLY: DO you ever get tired of chickens, Mr. Leghorn?

LEGHORN: Anybody who is tired of chickens is tired of life.

SAM: You hear about the bankruptcy, Jerry?

JERRY: Yeah. I keep wondering what an ordinary bunch of kids like us can do.

[JERRY puts his hands behind his back, does a tap dance as he ponders the problem. He stops, speaks to the chorus.]

JERRY: YOU kids got any ideas?

[Members of the chorus put their hands behind their backs and duplicate his steps in unison. They stop and sing the next line with a gorgeous choral effect.]

CHORUS: [Singing] What can ordinary kids like us do about anything?

LEGHORN: Maybe you could have a cake sale.

SALLY: Mr. Leghorn—couldn’t you give us a few million buckaroonies or so?

LEGHORN: I came down here to see what this stepson of mine was getting for ten thousand dollars a year, and I must say I’m not overwhelmed with respect. It looks like Disneyland without the rides to me.

KIMBERLY: But we’re your nation’s future!

LEGHORN: That’s what I mean.

JERRY: Wait a minute! I’ve got it! We’ll put together a Broadway musical with all the talent we’ve got right here!

CHORUS: [Thunderstruck, as one] Wow! Do you think we really could?

JERRY: Why not? We could take a piece of meretricious kid crap up there and make enough in a season to keep this academic bucket shop running for years!

CHORUS: [As one] Holy smokes!

SALLY: Jerry—-just one question: Are we still in love?

JERRY: You mean in spite of the bankruptcy? It’s too early to tell.

SALLY: I’ll wait.

[ELBERT WHITEFEET, the beloved old college president and philosopher, enters wild with grief over the bankruptcy. He is comforted by DR. HENRY JEKYLL, the venerable head of the chemistry department, and by POPS, the doddering campus cop. WHITEFEET and JEKYLL wear academic caps and gowns. POPS is uniformed like a Keystone Cop. It is a wild scene. Students look on in horror and pity as WHITEFEET tears out handfuls of his own hair, rends his garments, dumps a trash container over himself, and so on.]

WHITEFEET: I don’t want to live anymore!

POPS: Please, sir—the student body is watching.

WHITEFEET: I don’t care!

POPS: They shouldn’t see the president of their college in this condition. They might write home.

WHITEFEET: They should hang me from the Senior Elm for what I’ve done.

JEKYLL: Elbert—you haven’t done anything a million other nincompoops might not have done.

WHITEFEET: [Embracing Jekyll] Ah—Dr. Henry Jekyll—the head of the chemistry department and my closest friend. Faithful old Henry, the only faculty