For decades, there had been simmering hostilities between the rival clans on Mockingavian Lane. Hisman Moenster and his vampire wife Dilly lived with Grampire and their werewolf son Eddies as well as their niece Melinda, but their run-down pile was challenged by the sprawling Adims Family, headed by Gormless Adims and his beloved wife Morticiana, their children February and Ugsley, the bald Uncle Sphincter, Grandmitch and the unclassifiable Thang.  It hadn't helped that both families had been employed by rival US television networks in the mid-sixties and that both had subsequently become icons of popular culture.

Now, the rivalries had finally erupted into all-out warfare between the two macabre fixtures.  Hisman had objected to Uncle Sphincter's glow in the dark cranium disturbing his sleep, while it was undeniably upsetting Dilly's navigational sense whenever she metamorphosed into a bat. Added to which, February and Eddies were star-crossed lovers, carrying on behind each others back, much to the displeasure of their respective clans. Matters had come to a head when the ambulatory Thang had been caught on Moenster land and held hostage. The Adimses didn't accept the situation, and in an ill-fated rescue attempt, Cousin Snit rolled into 13 1/2 Mockingavian Lane, trying to rescue the errant Adims from unfriendly custody. Unfortunately, a fiery mishap caught his copious hair alight and it turned into an inadvertant suicide mission...

"Please, stop all this, now. And give back our loved ones, cruelly held hostage." Morticiana pleaded.
"You thought that your infiltrator Cousin Snit could masquerade as a wigstand, didn't you? Well, you were wrong!!!" Grampire snarled.
"We'll see how far your perfidy gets you when I summon spells up to punish you!" Granitch replied in kind.
"Stop spying on us! We've seen your wife flapping over our house."
"I'm not surprised, given how often you crash through your door and wreck it." Gormless sniffed at Hisman.
"Oh, now we come to it! You're discriminating against me because of my green and gray complexion!"
"If the bolts fit, wear them. Although come to think of it, you already do."
"Well, you don't chant your house is a museum for nothing, I see." Dilly chimed in.
"Those are antiques, I'll have you know." Morticiania responded.

Meanwhile, Uncle Sphincter was enconsced in the Adims Family's secret lab, when a peculiar glow lit up the corner and the current lineup of the Freedom Brigade materialised from it:
"Oh, thank goodness, Vicky! You've come to help. You have, haven't you?" Sphincter pleaded.
"Sphincter, you know I'm with Buck Warlock now. It could never have worked out between us. We're too different. No, we're here to adjudicate a ceasefire between you and the Moensters."

Captain Swift quickly disarmed the respective combatants as a journalist sidled up:"Milly Nadgers from the Slotham Express. I want to take Badman's virginity! Oops."
Lightpower recognised her: "Mockingavian Lane is way off your beat, Milly. Why is Badman spying on the Moenster-Adims Family War?"
"Oooh, Man Plunder. What a nice skintight outfit you're wearing." 
"Hoi! Eyes erf ma man, yew!" Hamish MacHunk responded, possessively embracing his husband.
"Stop changing the subject, you extremely cheap tabloid journalist. I shall lassoo you with my lassoo of domination and you will be forced to submit. Now... did our old pointy eared nemesis send you here to provide him with intelligence? And if so, why couldn't he come himself?" Lady Liberty took the initiative.
"Curse you, Glamazon. Urrgh. Oh, quality journalism. Stop it! It burns! It burns!! It burns!!!"
Black Vulcan scowled: "Th' power of the quality press compells you, Milly! Tell us!"
Captain Swift raised an eyebrow: "Er, looks as if that quality journalism effect also affected that adjacent televangelist over there, trying to exploit the issue of Transylvanian-American immigration for his audience. Green Trashcan?"  Thick clouds of pungent fire repellent descended over the exorcised individual, prostrate on the ground before the effects of quality free press readership.

"You see? Cheap bargain basement media outlets are trying to exploit the fact that you're macabre-Americans."
"We prefer Transylvanian-Americans actually, Bat Woman." Grampire said sniffily
"Speak for yourself, short squat and pallid. I'm a proud daughter of Salem." Granwitch retorted.
"Actually, no-one is quite sure where Cousin Snit's from." Morticiana confessed.
"But you're virtually identical." Captain Swift said, gazing between the two families.
"Blame the sixties television networks. We came along first, then they imitated us."
"Dad, I have something to confess- February Adims is pregnant and I'm the father."
"Oh, darling! We'll be grandparents!"
"Actually, Dilly... I have something to tell you. I'll just come out and say it...I'm gay."
"Hisman!!!" 
"I'm sorry. I should have told you earlier, but the series was set in the sixties."
"Oh, not again! This ridiculous situation has resolved itself with no real intervention from us whatsoever..." Lady Liberty complained.
"Wait. What's that large DELLECNAC sign in the sky... oh no! It's... CANCELLED!!! This was one lame plot line too far!!!" Bat Woman gasped, as the celestial stamp impacted on the Freedom Brigade, obliterating them and their world from existence, basically because I got tired of writing this series. There. Finally done it.  RS.

"Murderer!!!" Captain Swift said, before a convenient superspeed anvil ended his existence.

THE END