"But all I'm asking is that you capture a couple of furry-footed, little midgets," repeated Denethor testily. "Is that too much to ask after all the tender loving care I've lavished on you all these years?"
"Yes!"
The Lord High Steward of Rondor (TM) adopted a more soothing tone: "But my cuddly fluffykins...my handsome pet, they're just two itsy bitsy little halflings no higher than your shapely knees, with no more intelligence than a lobotomised rabbit. How hard could it be?"
"I won't do it!"
Denethor stroked the Balrog's muscular thigh.
"Stop that!"
"I'll increase your ration of Rondorian virgins..."
"I won't do it! I won't!" replied the Balrog.
"Pleassse..."
"Take your filthy paws off my leg!"
"But my own dearest darling... you used to love being tickled there when you were a mere Balrog in arms," said Denethor, sulkily.

"Stop that at once - you broken-down old pervert, or I shall barbecue your firstborn son and serve him up to you on a bed of sauteed mushrooms for elevenses!"
"What if I give you that prim Elven princess, Arwen, to play with, eh?"
"I have lately received a very much better offer than THAT!" snapped the Balrog.
"Oh, really," sneered Denethor, "Pray, what better offer could tempt you away from so doting a Master, who feeds you on man-flesh, and lets you have your fun with the Rohirrim maidens I keep specially for your delectation?"

The Balrog drew himself up to his not inconsiderable height, bumped his elegantly coiffeured mane on the ornate chandelier, muttered 'bugger', and promptly gave the Steward a playful lick with his whip.
"Ouch, that hurt!"
"Not as much as my news will"
"which is?"
"I have received a message by Carrier-Crow (TM) from the JAKSON making me an offer no respectable and ambitious Balrog could possibly refuse!"
"Jakson? JAKSON?" muttered Denethor, testily. "Who in Middle-Earth is 'Jakson"?

"He who is possessed of a secret bane of even mightier power than that paltry ring you covet!"
"Forsooth! You don't say so."
"I do say so."
"Jakson!" spluttered Denethor, choking on a mouthful of Cabernét-Tirith 49.
"The mightiest Lord in Middle Earth - or outside of it!" thundered the Balrog triumphantly.
"Whence comes he?"
"From Kiwidor"
"Kiwidor, KIWI-DOR? Why vexest thou me with these labyrinthine riddles?"
"Because it's a rare treat to see you put out, you stuck-up old fart!"

"Speak plainly, spawn of Morgoth," said Denethor, drawing himself up to his less considerable height, and fingering his codpiece menacingly.
"Your rule is ended," replied the Balrog with a theatrical crack of his whip, and a toss of his fiery mane. "The Dark Lord Jakson rules all through the power of the thing he possesses. Mighty it was of old before technicolor was discovered, and mightier still it has become through 'creative sub-editing' and 'selective cuts'. This bane is so passing fair that all who see it fall under it's spell. Yet none who possess it remain uncorrupted by its malevolent will. None but the Jakson, that is..."
The Balrog paused to refill his glass and grab a bite from a passing servant. That is, he bit a passing servant's head off in one lip-smacking gulp, but politely declined the fried mushrooms he was carrying. "Ash Jakson durbatuluk, ash Jakson gimbatul, ash Jakson thrakatuluk, ash ethernet crimping tool!" (The Balrog's command of the Black Tongue was a little rusty owing to its long vacation in the far West). The change in Denethor's face was astounding. Suddenly it turned red, then purple, then yellow, then green. Spittle dribbled from his quivering lips and the Carrier-crows (TM) stopped their ears.

"Never before has any voice dared to utter such words before the High Steward of Rondor!" he raged.
"Unless you wish to hear them twelve times a day, on the hour, every hour, you would do well to show a little more respect to one who has been favoured by the omnipotent, Dark Lord Jakson," retorted the Balrog with a particularly vicious snarl, that incinerated the very fetching neo-numenorian (TM) drapes behind him. Denethor retreated to his throne, and flung himself down on the orcskin cushions with an angry scowl. He refilled his cup and drained it in one gulp. Then he refilled it again, and drained it in two gulps. Finally, he threw it down in disgust and just swigged from the bottle. Presently he began to speak in the quiet, insinuating voice the Balrog knew so well, but this time his speech was somewhat slurred:
"Who ish thish Jakass - hic - Jak-son that I, hic, the Schteuard of the City, and Lord of all, hic, Rondor should tremble at hish name? Hish country of , hic, Kiwidor ishh utterly unknown to me, ash ish thish 'bane' of which you schpeak - Speak. Schpeak, hic, my pet, my dearest! Am I not your fluffy, cuddly uncle-kinshh?"

"The Jakson has commanded me to say only this to you, you broken-down old poofter: 'You're out of the script, Denethor! From now on I'm running the show, and there's no room in it for quaint old geezers like you! What the punters want is sword-wielding dudes in cool threads, gratuitous dwarf tossing, lots of top totty getting laid by my leather-clad Balrog, and NO FUCKING TOM BOMBADIL OR TALKING TREES!"
At that very moment a very fat, dark, shadow, dressed only in a pair of oversive Bermuda shorts and a pair of cheap sandals, swooped low over the gleaming towers and minarets of Minas Tirith. Every heart stopped, and every voice was stilled. Even the Royal mice, who had constructed a very cozy apartment in Denethor's orcskin cushions, choked on their cheese, and froze... The realm of Rondor trembled from its topmost tower to its worm-eaten foundations. There was a roar as the Balrog burst into tongues of flame, and leaped for the window. "Byeeee - SUCKER!" he shouted, and was gone in a blur of shadowy wings and flailing whips.
"Oh - shit!" said Denethor.

Towers fell and battlements slid. Cakes crumbled, and cheese melted. The mice were crushed by the Steward's disintegrating chamber pot. The skies of Rondor were riven with technicolor lightnings, and it's papier-mache hills and cgi mountains, crumbled into dust. And into the heart of the destruction, with a cry that seared Denethor's ears, and soiled his best, orcskin trousers, the Jakson came.

Cut!" he said in his bluff New Zealand twang.

Denethor had just been edited out...