Squirrel takeover arc

This is a story arc about the Squirrels taking over Clones 'R' Us.

## Plot

It begins with Gordon Noble talking on the phone to someone who claims to be a wealthy investor but it turns out to be one of the squirrels, who plans to use acorns to buy and take over Clones 'R' Us, despite his friend's insistence that acorns are worthless.

In the next strip, Thaddeus and Gordon are shocked to see that the investors are squirrels and they're paying them in acorns. The squirrels then show them a newspaper with the headline '"Intelligent" Squirrels Take Over Confederation Park". This shocks Thaddeus and Gordon but the squirrels think the men are just shocked by the quotation marks.

In the following strip, Gordon asks the squirrels how they made acorns their legal currency so fast and they reply that they have a persuasive lobbyist, namely the bear.

In the next strip, Gordon finds out that some other small companies are buying their stock in acorn money, they control less than half of their own stock, and that the small companies are owned by the squirrels, therefore *they* are now owned by the squirrels. A squirrel in a tie then requests wood panelling in its new office.

In the next strip, Gordon asks the squirrel how they bought Clones 'R' Us but the squirrel only quotes Bruce Wayne and says, "We bought most of the shares... through various charitable foundations, trusts and so forth. Look, it's all a bit technical, but the important thing is that the company's future is secure."

In the next strip, the squirrel in the tie claims that it will be making all the humans hibernate for five months, then claims to be joking and fires them all.

In the following strip, Thaddeus asks who will do the work. The squirrel says that the squirrels will and claims they're smarter than humans. Thaddeus asks what the humans would do, so the squirrel uses him as an ottoman.

In the next strip, Thaddeus, Gordon, and Larry recruit Bob to speak to the squirrels because, while he may not be very logical, assertive, or persuasive, he was out getting lattes when they took the vote.

Bob tries to speak to the bear in the following strip, but the bear gives him what he calls a "wedgie" even though that's not technically possible since he wears no underwear.

In the next strip, Thaddeus and Bob are at a cafe worrying about the environment. A man denies that the planet is warming up, so Thaddeus sprays him with liquid that hurts him. He explains that it's intelligence enhancement spray and it only hurts when people fight it.

In the following strip, one squirrel sees another sleeping who was supposed to be guarding a fat squirrel named Charlie. They find Charlie and find that he's eaten most of their acorns.

The next strip sees the squirrel explaining to Thaddeus that they are broke because Charlie ate their acorns and since they had no security for acorns already in circulation, market confidence dissolved and the value dropped down to nothing. Thaddeus asks if the squirrels will be OK. The squirrel says yes and goes online and pretends to be a Nigerian prince.

## Trivia

* Carl the squirrel makes a second appearance.
* Bruce Wayne, the alias of Batman, is mentioned. The squirrels also mention "Nutflix" which is a parody of Netflix.
* This arc reveals that Thaddeus has eight years of university training.
* Larry makes a second appearance.
* The squirrels fired all the humans, but it is unknown what they did with the cyborgs.
* It is unknown what the bear did to Bob that he calls a "wedgie".
* Charlie the squirrel has the same name as one of the mice.