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Literature Text
Memo to Jhonen
All morning, the door to the boardroom has been closed and tightly guarded. Inside the boardroom, a long table is lined on both sides by executives hard at work. This meeting will finally wrap up just as soon as the executives finish their carefully worded memo to Jhonen Vasquez.
Each of the execs is in charge of a vitally important thing so each of them has a title such as...
Exec in Charge of Repetition, Repetition, Repetition... and Repetition
Exec in Charge of Throwing Out Any Ideas We Didn't Think of First
Exec in Charge of Profit$, Profit$$ and more Profit$$$
Exec in Charge of Grossly Hypocritical Contradictions
Exec in Charge of Making Everything Less Fun
Exec in Charge of Making Us Think We Have a Single Spark of Creativity Between Us
Exec in Charge of Inciting an Insane Hatred of Dib Even Though He Couldn't Be the Villain Because the Show Invader Zim Doesn't Even HAVE a Villain
Exec in Charge of Making The Crew Make Gir Say "Biscuits" Yet One More Time Because the More He Says It the Funnier and the Funnier and the Funnier and the Funnier it Gets, Ha Ha Ha Ha
Exec in Charge of Saying "Because We Said So, That's Why"
All these execs, and many more besides, crouch over their keyboards. Occasionally one of them pauses as if reading, then closes without saving before opening a new file and starting all over again.
As each of the memos are finished, they are all sent to the server where the head exec can read them. Finally the head exec chooses one that needs only a couple of corrections, then presses a button that sends the memo to the printer.
And this is what it says:
"We absolutely LOVE every one of your ideas, JV, but just a few little changes. You'll barely notice them and they'll make the show a whole lot more profita- I mean, more funny.
"NO NO NO, You can't use the word 'Mexico'! That word is offensive to Mexicans!
"And there was way too much violence in that last script. You gotta tone it down. We can't have all those kids out there getting up from watching TV and immediately running out to do whatever they just saw on our show, blowing up planets and jumping off roofs onto power lines. All the parents would say it was our fault, and maybe it even would be.
"And you gotta be careful what color fiery explosions you use after 9 11; they gotta be green or blue or purple or something. Red or yellow fiery explosions might give kids the idea it might be fun to go out and hijack a plane to fly it into a building to make a giant fireball. After all, even once is too often, you know.
"And you can't have a "LITTLE GIRL LOST" label on the milk carton! That pooooooooor little girl, wandering around looooost! BAAAAAW-AAAAAAAAAAAW! (sniff) What's next?
"No blood on the children! What are you, sick?
"You can't have Gir eating one kid's toy robot, and then eating the other kid! The kids'll all stop buying all our Gir merchandi - I mean, they'll all stop loving Gir! Have him eat... wait for it... BOTH toy robots! Yeah? D'ya get it? Huh? D'ya get it? If it's funny once, it'll be twice as funny twice! That's how it works, Jhonen. That's what makes something funny. Listen to us. We know.
"And NO! You can't have Iggins beaten up by policemen! My God... adults hurting and beating up kids! What on earth were you thinking? Can you even imagine the tons of protest letters we'd get over that? Someone showed us those comics you drew about a guy who serial kills, but that's a different cartoon.
"Oh... and... THIS...
"You're really in trouble now. What did we tell you about having all these same things happening to Dib?
"You're STILL not doing enough of it.
"As soon as Dib walks into the frame, take everything we've been saying all along about violence and adults harming kids... and forget it. We never said it. Take every single thing we said to cut from all the other scenes because it was too violent, and drop it into a scene with Dib, who cares if it matches the story. Don't worry, if it's Dib we won't give you any flack for violence against children... even though he IS a child.
"And put MORE big head jokes in! More, more, more. Lots more, hundreds more, millions more. Really beat it into the ground, and then keep pounding away in the bottom of the greasy trench in the road where the dead horse used to lie. It's starting to not be as funny any more, so the kids all need to be reminded every minute on the minute, HEEEEE-EEEEEEE-EEEEYYYKIIII-IIIII-IIIIIIIDZ! 1... 2... 3... LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! THIS, IS, FUNNY! Isn't it? Huh? Huh? Huh? Isn't it? Huh? Huh? Huh? HUH? It is, isn't it? Well? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
"If you don't do as we say, we will cancel your show and replace it with the worst stuff we can find, stuff that'll make your eyes boil, burst and begin to pour down over your cheeks.
"Come to think of it, we're gonna cancel your show anyway."
The head exec frowns slightly; he crumples up the memo and throws it in the garbage. He turns back to his computer and edits out the line about canceling the show anyway, to give the crew a big surprise someday, and replaces it with another "Absolutely LOVE your ideas... SMOOCH!" and prints the memo out all over again. This time he holds it up and the entire table erupts in applause and hooting.
That is the signal for lunch to be brought in. The door to the boardroom opens and a cart rolls in, pushed by two zoo employees who manage to make it to the table long enough to dump a huge stalk of bananas on it before jumping back just in time. Instantly the execs leap over their laptops...
... and the table is aswarm with shrieking apes in business suits. Every single one of them was needed to type on every single one of those keyboards so that eventually one of the memos would make enough sense... even if the only sense it made was grammatical sense... that Jhonen could actually read it.
The apes at the high-status end of the table reach into their pants and fling what they find there at the apes at the low-status end of the table, driving them back to keep the bigger bananas all for themselves.
The head exec, an aged silverback in a XXXXXL business suit and who learned English from Koko the sign language gorilla, doesn't bother joining the scramble, but instead snatches a banana from a subordinate, who wants to throw something and shriek at him but thinks better of it. Instead the subordinate grabs another, smaller banana from the ape sitting next to him. Similarly outranked, that ape now grabs an even smaller banana from the rapidly dwindling stalk of them in the middle of the table, and sulking, eats that one instead.
As each of the apes finishes lunch, they all gather to groom each other. Chomping on the fleas, they exchange the kind of gossip humans exchange around the water cooler and congratulate each other on another morning's work well done.
All morning, the door to the boardroom has been closed and tightly guarded. Inside the boardroom, a long table is lined on both sides by executives hard at work. This meeting will finally wrap up just as soon as the executives finish their carefully worded memo to Jhonen Vasquez.
Each of the execs is in charge of a vitally important thing so each of them has a title such as...
Exec in Charge of Repetition, Repetition, Repetition... and Repetition
Exec in Charge of Throwing Out Any Ideas We Didn't Think of First
Exec in Charge of Profit$, Profit$$ and more Profit$$$
Exec in Charge of Grossly Hypocritical Contradictions
Exec in Charge of Making Everything Less Fun
Exec in Charge of Making Us Think We Have a Single Spark of Creativity Between Us
Exec in Charge of Inciting an Insane Hatred of Dib Even Though He Couldn't Be the Villain Because the Show Invader Zim Doesn't Even HAVE a Villain
Exec in Charge of Making The Crew Make Gir Say "Biscuits" Yet One More Time Because the More He Says It the Funnier and the Funnier and the Funnier and the Funnier it Gets, Ha Ha Ha Ha
Exec in Charge of Saying "Because We Said So, That's Why"
All these execs, and many more besides, crouch over their keyboards. Occasionally one of them pauses as if reading, then closes without saving before opening a new file and starting all over again.
As each of the memos are finished, they are all sent to the server where the head exec can read them. Finally the head exec chooses one that needs only a couple of corrections, then presses a button that sends the memo to the printer.
And this is what it says:
"We absolutely LOVE every one of your ideas, JV, but just a few little changes. You'll barely notice them and they'll make the show a whole lot more profita- I mean, more funny.
"NO NO NO, You can't use the word 'Mexico'! That word is offensive to Mexicans!
"And there was way too much violence in that last script. You gotta tone it down. We can't have all those kids out there getting up from watching TV and immediately running out to do whatever they just saw on our show, blowing up planets and jumping off roofs onto power lines. All the parents would say it was our fault, and maybe it even would be.
"And you gotta be careful what color fiery explosions you use after 9 11; they gotta be green or blue or purple or something. Red or yellow fiery explosions might give kids the idea it might be fun to go out and hijack a plane to fly it into a building to make a giant fireball. After all, even once is too often, you know.
"And you can't have a "LITTLE GIRL LOST" label on the milk carton! That pooooooooor little girl, wandering around looooost! BAAAAAW-AAAAAAAAAAAW! (sniff) What's next?
"No blood on the children! What are you, sick?
"You can't have Gir eating one kid's toy robot, and then eating the other kid! The kids'll all stop buying all our Gir merchandi - I mean, they'll all stop loving Gir! Have him eat... wait for it... BOTH toy robots! Yeah? D'ya get it? Huh? D'ya get it? If it's funny once, it'll be twice as funny twice! That's how it works, Jhonen. That's what makes something funny. Listen to us. We know.
"And NO! You can't have Iggins beaten up by policemen! My God... adults hurting and beating up kids! What on earth were you thinking? Can you even imagine the tons of protest letters we'd get over that? Someone showed us those comics you drew about a guy who serial kills, but that's a different cartoon.
"Oh... and... THIS...
"You're really in trouble now. What did we tell you about having all these same things happening to Dib?
"You're STILL not doing enough of it.
"As soon as Dib walks into the frame, take everything we've been saying all along about violence and adults harming kids... and forget it. We never said it. Take every single thing we said to cut from all the other scenes because it was too violent, and drop it into a scene with Dib, who cares if it matches the story. Don't worry, if it's Dib we won't give you any flack for violence against children... even though he IS a child.
"And put MORE big head jokes in! More, more, more. Lots more, hundreds more, millions more. Really beat it into the ground, and then keep pounding away in the bottom of the greasy trench in the road where the dead horse used to lie. It's starting to not be as funny any more, so the kids all need to be reminded every minute on the minute, HEEEEE-EEEEEEE-EEEEYYYKIIII-IIIII-IIIIIIIDZ! 1... 2... 3... LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH! THIS, IS, FUNNY! Isn't it? Huh? Huh? Huh? Isn't it? Huh? Huh? Huh? HUH? It is, isn't it? Well? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
"If you don't do as we say, we will cancel your show and replace it with the worst stuff we can find, stuff that'll make your eyes boil, burst and begin to pour down over your cheeks.
"Come to think of it, we're gonna cancel your show anyway."
The head exec frowns slightly; he crumples up the memo and throws it in the garbage. He turns back to his computer and edits out the line about canceling the show anyway, to give the crew a big surprise someday, and replaces it with another "Absolutely LOVE your ideas... SMOOCH!" and prints the memo out all over again. This time he holds it up and the entire table erupts in applause and hooting.
That is the signal for lunch to be brought in. The door to the boardroom opens and a cart rolls in, pushed by two zoo employees who manage to make it to the table long enough to dump a huge stalk of bananas on it before jumping back just in time. Instantly the execs leap over their laptops...
... and the table is aswarm with shrieking apes in business suits. Every single one of them was needed to type on every single one of those keyboards so that eventually one of the memos would make enough sense... even if the only sense it made was grammatical sense... that Jhonen could actually read it.
The apes at the high-status end of the table reach into their pants and fling what they find there at the apes at the low-status end of the table, driving them back to keep the bigger bananas all for themselves.
The head exec, an aged silverback in a XXXXXL business suit and who learned English from Koko the sign language gorilla, doesn't bother joining the scramble, but instead snatches a banana from a subordinate, who wants to throw something and shriek at him but thinks better of it. Instead the subordinate grabs another, smaller banana from the ape sitting next to him. Similarly outranked, that ape now grabs an even smaller banana from the rapidly dwindling stalk of them in the middle of the table, and sulking, eats that one instead.
As each of the apes finishes lunch, they all gather to groom each other. Chomping on the fleas, they exchange the kind of gossip humans exchange around the water cooler and congratulate each other on another morning's work well done.
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(A/N)I don't own Invader Zim. If I did, a certain studio would have been first Columbined, then firebombed off the face of the earth. Any similarities to any actual persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.
Lately I've been pointing so many people to this one that I figured I would do well to post it here too.
The insanely overdone and not even remotely funny anti-Dib tone of the series was due in no small part to the conveniently hypocritical requirements imposed on the crew by stuffed shirts who flush whatever they DO manage to create. Every single one of the stupid changes mentioned, from the possibility of kids being inspired to jump onto power lines, to Gir eating the second toy instead of the second kid, has been documented. (Sorry; I didn't save the URLs.
I'll make sure to remember to do that from now on.)
Because the longer the show ran, the worse things steadily got for Dib, I for one am GLAD it was cancelled when it was! I would be happier never knowing what would have followed such a hashed out excuse for an episode, such a steaming pile... literally... as ToP. The crew is far from proud of that dog's breakfast so they do have some surviving standards.
I wish to make it clear that this fic intends no insult to our great ape cousins; it's just that I know of no proverb claiming that an infinite number of blobs of pond scum at an infinite number of keyboards could write anything.
Every single time I worked on this one, I was in gales of laughter by the time I got to the end. I only hope it does as much for you as it did for me!
Lately I've been pointing so many people to this one that I figured I would do well to post it here too.
The insanely overdone and not even remotely funny anti-Dib tone of the series was due in no small part to the conveniently hypocritical requirements imposed on the crew by stuffed shirts who flush whatever they DO manage to create. Every single one of the stupid changes mentioned, from the possibility of kids being inspired to jump onto power lines, to Gir eating the second toy instead of the second kid, has been documented. (Sorry; I didn't save the URLs.
I'll make sure to remember to do that from now on.) Because the longer the show ran, the worse things steadily got for Dib, I for one am GLAD it was cancelled when it was! I would be happier never knowing what would have followed such a hashed out excuse for an episode, such a steaming pile... literally... as ToP. The crew is far from proud of that dog's breakfast so they do have some surviving standards.
I wish to make it clear that this fic intends no insult to our great ape cousins; it's just that I know of no proverb claiming that an infinite number of blobs of pond scum at an infinite number of keyboards could write anything.
Every single time I worked on this one, I was in gales of laughter by the time I got to the end. I only hope it does as much for you as it did for me!
© 2007 - 2024 Dibsthe1
Comments53
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actually, Vanquez said that the only thing that the producers wouldn't let him do is have more children randomly explode. The only change the executives made to the show was less children exploding for no reason. Although originally they were going to have Jhonen remove Gir but Jhonen convinced the producers that Gir was only created to give a friend of Jhonen's a chance at doing voice animation and Gir was going to die off by the end of the pilot. Jhonen was actually given a lot of freedom on Invader Zim.