“Court Case”
In this episode: Emily (9), Tom Servo (8), Crow T. Robot (7), Narrator (7)
Tennis is a form of war. A violent thing.
I thought it was a burning ring.
And in the middle of it all, the absolute center of attention is this...
Little shorts.
The tennis ball.
Scientific name: Tennius Ballias.
It lives in a hundred-mile-an-hour world.
Palm Springs?
Contact is extreme. Either brutal, or feather-light.
Like my marriage.
... so how does a ball get that way?
Practice.
How does such utter reliability come to be? When so many are produced, how can each one be so perfect?
Or so white?
The answer comes from machines...
Yaaay!
... and people.
Booo...
Oh...
... and a name. [the camera focuses on the Penn brand] A big one.
Penn!
The Phoenix facility with 100,000 plus square feet under roof is one of four such plants.
Wow.
Each all dedicated to one thing...
Balls!
Making the best tennis balls possible, as perfect as can be. Millions of them.
Millions of balls!
The other plants are in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and in Mullingar, Ireland.
[Irish accent] Ah sure, we like to hit balls back and forth with racquets in Ireland.
Constant checking assures, guarantees, absolute tolerances. Everything must be perfect.
Our nation's security depends on it.
Pellets, each identical, are placed in a mold. Many at a time. The mold closes, leaving an exact time and preset temperature to do the job.
[singing] Just another brick in the wall...
Minutes later, vastly changed, the former pellets emerge as sort of a blanket, ready for dye cutting to separate the perfect half spheres.
I'm learning a lot.
Variations in wall thickness, weight, and overall dimensions are infinitesimal.
Then we add the honey barbecue sauce.
Another mold, different from the first, handles the second of the three cures. Some on the top, some on the bottom.
Like a waffle.
These molds are pressurized, which enables them to trap air inside the ball centers. That's how the bounce gets in.
Like Tigger. Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
Approximately one atmosphere, or about 15 pounds per square inch. Again, time, temperature, and pressure do the work. The seam vulcanizes perfectly.
This is a lot of work for something your dog will chew on.
At this stage, the balls are checked for size. Sizing is visual, electronic, and mechanical. A three-way proposition.
Uhhh...
Oversized, and undersized centers are screened and separated to find use as simple play balls, or other activities. Not tennis.
I never realized how much tennis has in common with eugenics.
Next, in drums, the balls are tumbled.
I'll tumble for ya...
Steam is introduced. Mold marks dissappear. The flat nap is raised and fluffed.
Now he's just making up words.
Yeah, right?
A lineup for printing, which adds something important. The name. Penn.
James Penn.
A final check, and the balls are inserted in the distinctive can. Penn. Known wherever tennis is played.
Like at Wimbledon or at Pfifer Middle School where you skinned your knee so badly you quit the team, remember, you LITTLE WHINER?!
The can, by the way, has a patented snap-off top designed to prevent cut fingers.
[a handler runs their fingers along the can's edge]
Ow! Ow ow ow...
It was introduced by Penn.
An employee named Penn, who has four fingers now.
[as a machine rapidly squeezes a tennis ball]
Oh, you two shouldn't be watching this. This is...
[the camera zooms out to reveal multiple balls getting squeezed in the same way, causing the bots to laugh mischievously]
This is great... it's a free-for-all...
When you think balls, think Penn.
Balls!
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Mystery Science Theater 3000 pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
