Thursday 27 September 2012

Eureka

We took Eleanor* to Eureka last Sunday.
We had originally hoped to go with Richard's parents, but given the events that unfolded on this excursion it may be just as well that they couldn't make it.
Eleanor loves Eureka**, so even on a normal day it would have been a great adventure out, but this was no normal day.
This was the day that Doctor Horrible invaded the Children's Museum and Eleanor, with the able assistance of Batman and Spiderman, defeated his evil plot.
 We arrived to find a police presence in the museum grounds.
Fortunately they weren't, as I initially feared, there to check for unexploded bombsbut to impress on the unformed minds of our youth that Police Are Heroes Too.
They did this with stickers, colouring sheets and free access to the siren on their van.
After a little while, though, it was clear that they had another, deeper purpose.
They were there to keep an eye on the lab-coated, goggle-wearing, stammering crazy-man who was standing just outside the doors and making things go BOOM!***
 This was none other than the nefarious Doctor Horrible himself, apparently embarking on an evil scheme to blow up parts of Eureka using household items.
We watched as he exploded some bicarbonate of soda with vinegar, then used this to make a rocket****.
Then we beheld the true nature of his dastardly plan: to drench all visitors to the museum with Coca Cola, thus rendering them moist, sticky and ready to obey any command, no matter how horrible, if it meant getting to wash the gunk off afterwards.
There was cola, there were mentoes, you can imagine the rest.
 Fortunately we had Supergirl***** with us so she quickly moved us back, out of range of the sinister scientist's cola cannon.
Others were not so lucky.

Escaping the mayhem in the forecourt we headed in and encountered Batman and Spiderman in the village square.
They explained that Doctor Horrible had an evil scheme afoot , and that they needed the help of Supergirl (and the other children too I suppose) to defeat him.
First they went through Superhero Bootcamp: learning to jump, climb, and in Ele...I mean Supergirl's case, fly, and to punch things while shouting "Zap!" and "Pow!" in order to properly defeat super-villains.
 Then they began to look for clues.
They quickly discovered a break-in at the village bank: Doctor Horrible had stolen the wonderflonium from the bank vault!
They Pow!ed their way out of the vault and followed the clues around the museum, uncovering evil robots (whose tyres needed replacing), terrible traps and scary schemes.
Eventually they found themselves back in the square and there, before them was Doctor Horrible himself, laughing his evil laugh and preparing to unleash a monologue.
 Supergirl was a little dismayed to find that he wouldn't run away when she Pow!ed him, but we explained that she had to wait until he had finished mocking us and, in due course, evil was vanquished and he fled into the depths of the museum.

Then we had lunch.

After lunch Supergirl embarked upon some superhero crafts: making a mask (just in case she needed an alternative costume I suppose), and filling out an application for the Eureka super-team.
 We were a little nonplussed when Doctor Horrible strolled in, sat down at the table, and began to fill out his application form for the Evil League of Evil, but he didn't try to do anything particularly heinous, so we left the conniving cognitian to his work and got on with the colouring and sticking.
In the course of this project the good, or rather evil, Doctor fell into conversation with Supergirl, and was tricked into revealing his latest scheme: to take over the world using an army of Triceratops.
Alas, all was now lost, Supergirl is a confirmed triceratops fan and was now firmly on the side of the perfidious PHD.
 Meanwhile he was very friendly and offered to let her Pow! him to make up for not running away when she did it before.

Craft time over the suborned Supergirl demonstrated her shift to the sinister side of the super-powered spectrum by selecting to visit the Hall of Giant Body Parts (also known as the Me And My Body exhibit )
There she played with giant teeth and other such relics of a golden age until it was time to go home.




*And Phoebe obviously, but she wasn't all that interested

**Eureka the Children's Museum, well worth a visit.

***Well, Ffffft anyway.

****Which failed to go off until he poked it, clearly they were going for an authentic Doctor Horrible experience here.

*****Known in her secret identity as not-at-all-mild-mannered Eleanor Wilson


2 comments:

  1. Awesome! Dan saw the pic on FB and got excited. Jez took one look and complained about mixing superhero genres. How did the TARDIS fit in? And did Dr Horrible sing at all?

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  2. I take it Jez isn't a fan of the crossover concept.
    Doctor Horrible didn't sing (well, he hummed a little while he was fill in out his application form) but definitely deserved his PHD in horribleness.
    The TARDIS wasn't part of the event, it's always there (it has a display on history inside) but Doctor Horrible did leave an evil note inside it (something about stopping time...).

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