CRY OF THE FLAMINGO

STRANGE WORLD Some Oak Cliff and Grand Prairie residents have been swapping an odd movie lately. The four-minute video centers on the kitschy fowl, known among yard-art mavens as longleggedus yardbirdicus plasticus, that have been taken hostage over the past six years from neighborhood yards in these parts of town and held for ransom.

So far, old news. But there’s a twist. The video shows these latest victims, snatched within the last few months, being tortured by their hooded captors! Crying for mercy in falsetto Mr. Bill voices, they are beaten, hanged, pushed down stairs, singed with a torch, and held at knife point. All the while, their captors are chanting anti-yard-art slogans in voices that sound like a Middle Eastern equivalent of Hans and Franz.

One of the flamingos says the ransom should be paid because “someday there won’t be any birds left but plastic ones like us.” A ransom note demands payment of $32,000 and a picture of Marlon Brando. Dallas Police detective PATRICK BOYD admits the case has him up a tree but expects to trap these bird-brains eventually. “I think they’re just college kids making some kind of environmental statement,” he says, “but the joke could turn tragic if they keep on going into people’s yards and getting these birds.”