Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

50 - All Hail Aaron and Tammy!

Guess what?

Suit & Tie was a hit!

We're talking right out of the gate!

Can you believe it? Me, either!

Credit where credit is due: The DuckGoose marketing people really brought their A game. For two solid weeks, it was relentless saturation bombing. If you were a kid age two to eleven, you could not escape us even if you wanted to. (Which you didn't!) If you watched TV, you saw endless teasers and clips. If you were online, there were also exclusive interviews with our animated characters. And online games! Not very exciting games, but still... games! And discussion groups! Where I spent countless hours just drinking in the excitement! And also resisting the urge to lash out at the occasional Negative Nelly who refused to get on board the Suit & Tie train. I kept it together until one young lady with the screen name of DancerDana complained that the show "looks dumb."

Oh, really, DancerDana? You think the show looks dumb? Well, I think you look dumb! I think you look so dumb that when you look in the mirror your reflection goes, Duh! You're not Dancer Dana, you're DUMB Dana a dumb dummy dumbo from Dumbville!

(Yeah, I know that wasn't clever — except maybe the part about the mirror, which still kind of makes me chuckle — but I had signed in pretending to be a ten-year old and I needed to stay in character. In any case, after that little outburst, I was banned by the moderator which I completely deserved.)

And not that I care what critics say (cough, cough) but... they fucking raved! All of them! Which becomes somewhat less impressive when you consider that we had a total of maybe five reviews. (Just as nobody wants to write kids' TV, nobody wants to review kids' TV, either.) They loved the character designs, the voice talent, the quirky, infectious music. But, as one reviewer noted, "what really makes this show stand out is the quality of the writing. Smart, subversive, hysterical."

Tammy and I had a lot of fun with that. Tammy would pitch a joke and I'd go, "Hmmm. It's smart and subversive... but is it hysterical?" And then I'd pitch a fix and Tammy would lament, "It's hysterical now, I'll give you that, but we've kind of lost the subversion." Believe me, we beat that stupid bit to death. Our staff came close to mutiny.

Immediately after the Nielsen ratings came in, DuckGoose was picked up for season two. The entire crew celebrated in the bullpen with champagne poured into plastic cups and inappropriately intimate hugs. Tammy made a short heartfelt speech thanking everyone for their spectacular work. I nodded in enthusiastic agreement, adding, "And by the way, if any of you have ideas for more stories, please let us know. Because we got nothin'!" Everyone laughed, although it was only sort of a joke. We had just finished producing fifty-two eleven-minute episodes. We barely dragged our exhausted carcasses over the finish line. But now — and without any break at all — we had to start coming up with fifty-two more. How the hell were we going to pull that off?

We needn't have worried.

A little while later, we were back in our office, still savoring our win when Evelyn showed up at our office. She cracked open the door and poked her head in. "Hi. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure!" I said genially. "Come on in!"

That, it turned out, was a huge mistake. You see, people who worked in Human Resources were best understood as the vampires of the business world. Under no circumstances should you invite them in. We knew this, but in our triumphant euphoria we had forgotten, and for a few credulous moments we actually believed that she had come to congratulate us on our success.