Product #2770-54c “Skyward Catapult”

When punk rock singer/songwriter Grand Wizir Todo and his band, The Insaniteers, asked us to provide the pyrotechnics on their 2005 “Rockin’ ’Round the Riverbend” tour, we immediately agreed. Our company’s love of punk rock is legendary; our love of pyrotechnics is infinite. And seeing as how this presented us with the opportunity to market our Punk Rock Soap Dispenser (available only through our psychic catalog) while at the same time getting a budding rock band under a cast-iron contract, it was the perfect win-lose situation.

Seriously, we couldn't even give those dispensers away, even with free birthday cake.

Way back in 1945, after the second world war ended, the Roboshrub Product Refinement Department set to work on an atomic-based fireworks launcher at the behest of the U.S. government. The launcher would have been a strategic asset, letting the soviets know that only capitalism yielded the most succulent fireworks. Posters were made, and news reels staring Senator McCarthy as the Football coach. It was Harry Truman’s surefire re-election plan, you see. The 22^nd amendment exempted him from term limits, so he could have won another go as President. And he would have gotten away with it, too. So what stopped him? Why didn’t the atomic-based fireworks launcher take off as planned?

Wendell Sunwell, that’s why. He was our company’s sole atomic expert, a master of the radioactive arts. When he was lost at sea in 1947, we could no longer proceed with the project. Only Sunwell understood the complexity of the barbecue-based triggering mechanism. We tried to continue the project, but setback after setback forced us to abandon our efforts. Harry Truman was forced to likewise abandon his dreams of surpassing Franklin Roosevelt as the only five-term U.S. president... he never recovered.

Harry Truman, c.a. 1953

Which brings us back to the Skyward Catapult. Two days after we were contacted by Grand Wizir Todo, a maintenance worker was almost crushed in the Roboshrub Inc. Storage Catacombs, hundreds of miles beneath the Earth’s crust. While we’ve fired him for his incompetence, the box he knocked over contained the unfinished papers and models of the Sunwell Project. Handing the artifacts to our new Product Re-engineer Christina Dockers, we thought parts of it could be salvaged and reused to help illuminate Grand Wizir Todo’s tour effects.

We got more than we bargained for. Christina used modern computer technology to quickly duplicate Sunwell’s experiments, and the project was completely finished in time for The Insaniteers’ first performance in Bangalore. There was a lot of last-minute nail biting. A lot of obsessive compulsive testing and retesting of controls, fiddling with the knobs and whatnot. And then... magic.

“Oooooooooooh!”

White light forked through the fading purple sky, burning through the rainbow as it stretched over the horizon. Like the Oroboros, the light bent, folding back in on its origin. As it crunched down, photons burst forth in a shimmering nova sphere. Particles of red and green floated down, disappearing before they reached the crowd. Silence filled the stadium. Grand Wizir Todo looked over at me, a mixed expression of embarrassment, failure, and anger on his face. Three seconds later the collective blast of cheers nearly threw him from the stage.

Welts covered our eardrums by the end of the concert, but it was totally worth it. The pyrotechnic display system was used eight more times during The Insaniteers’ tour, resulting in an exponential increase in fanbase. We even managed to sell our surplus soap dispensers!

While selling fireworks themselves are illegal in many parts of the developed world, it remains perfectly legal to sell the basic components of our pyrotechnic display system. These components will be bundled together under the ubiquitous brand label, “Skyward Catapult” and will be available for home use late this November, just before Thanksgiving in a lovely Sunwell commemorative box set. For pre-purchasing information, contact your local bus depot. Intended for home use only. Do not aim directly at face.