To help celebrate my friend Claire's latest Doodle Week, I thought it might be fun if our buddy "Back-up Girl," from the other day's post (Back-up Girl Takes on Captain Anonymous), flew in for the "Doodle Air" theme day.
As you may or may not know, Back-up Girl is BurghTown's resident marketing superhero. When other marketers are unavailable to fight the Dark Forces of Corporate Silliness due to disinterest... incompetence....sickness.... or actual personal lives, Back-up Girl is there!
Sweeping in, she uses her Super Follow-up Skills and her Red Editing Pen of Justice, to save the project!
Today, we find the Red Phone ringing at Back-up Girl's Super Secret Marketing Headquarters, located at 200 Main Street, Third Floor in BurghTown... Also found in the Yellow Pages and on Google via satellite...
Back-up Girl picks up the receiver. "Hello? Back-up Girl here. What seems to be the trouble?"
A child's scared voice quavers over the line. "It's Mayor Skippy, Back-up Girl!"
"Mayor Skippy?" Back-up Girl frowns and looks at her desk clock. "It's 8 o'clock at night. Isn't it past your bedtime?"
"It is and it's making me cranky. But there's no time for that now. This is an emergency! Miss Management has been taking over marketing campaigns all over town!"
Back-up Girl gasps. "Miss Management! Oh NO!"
"It seems she encouraged one of BurghTown's major advertisers to launch a billboard marketing campaign that is definitely not 'Rated for General Audiences' -- and the billboards are offending people all over the city!"
"That's terrible!" Back-up Girl says. "What are the billboards of, exactly?"
"I don't know," Mayor Skippy sighs, "my mommy won't let the Deputy Mayor show them to me. But I hear they're really bad. That's why we called you."
"Understood!" says Back-up Girl. "I'm on my--"
"Because, you know, the billboard people aren't answering their phones."
"Okay, then. I'm on my--"
"And our city PR rep is on his honeymoon."
"I hope he'll be very happy. I'm on my--"
"And I called the marketing company who designed the ads, but they all really kinda don't feel like taking the ads down right now..."
"All righty, then, Mayor Skippy, I'm on my--"
"And we all know you don't actually have a family or, gosh, even a DOG who might miss you... so we figured you'd probably wouldn't be doing anything tonight, anyway, other than drinking wine coolers and watching re-runs of Monk and--"
Back-up Girl grits her teeth and takes a deep breath. "Er, Mayor Skippy? I hate to interrupt you, Sir, but--"
"Yes?"
"I'm on my way!"
Meanwhile... in the historic center of BurghTown..
Miss Management is doing end-zone dances over the success of her most recent nefarious project.
"HAHAHA! I have changed all of the city's billboards to a campaign for my client that is so racy... so over-the-top... so mind-numbingly stupid and so fingernails-on-chalkboard offensive, even Girls Gone Wild, Gary Glitter, life-long porn stars and Courtney Love will be calling in to complain about it!"
Miss Management's lips part in a smile that reveals she has lipstick on her teeth.
"By the time I am done with this city, everyone in BurghTown will have my client's messaging burned indelibly in their minds-- forever! HAHAHAHAHA!!"
"Not so fast, Miss Management!" says a determined voice.
"Back-up Girl! You!... But I thought a Monk marathon was on tonight!"
"The continual battle against tasteless marketing ideas never stops, Miss Management!... Anyway, Monk would want it this way. I'm going to clean up this town."
"Oh, really?" Miss Management asks, with a narrow gaze behind her high-fashion spectacles. "Well, we'll just see about that."
(GASP!) Look! An electric bolt is shooting from Miss Management's evil Power Tie!
Watch out, Back-up Girl!
Phew! A near miss!
"You'll never stop me, Back-up Girl! I have my hand in businesses all over BurghTown!" Miss Management laughs. "Wherever you find catch phrases that don't make any sense...
"Or ads selling jeans without a single pair of jeans in the picture....
"Wherever you find typos on banner ads... Or badly mixed metaphors....
"Or billboards advertising events that ended MONTHS before...
"Whenever you get courtesy calls that interrupt your dinner...
"Or multiple copies of the same flier stuffed in your mailbox...
"I am there! You can't get rid of me, Back-up Girl. I am all around you."
"Maybe so," Back-up Girl says. "But I can take care of this offensive campaign!"
Miss Management laughs heartily. "How? The client wanted something that would grab the attention-- and I've given it to them!"
"I'll tell you how. Through something that's even more powerful than your cheap publicity tactics, Miss Management! Good old-fashioned quality writing!"
And with this, Back-up Girl brings out the red editing pen of justice.
Going from billboard to billboard, she battles with wording...
Struggles with unruly themes...
Gets knocked out by some powerful cliches...
But rallies under the cloak of a giant brainstorm.
"Okay, Back-up Girl," Miss Management sneers. "You might have won this one. But I won't be down for long. And just you wait...
"The Presidential Elections are coming up, and the candidates need a fine ad woman with an aesthetic just like mine. So why am I waiting around this hick town? I'm off to DC!"
Will America soon see political campaign ads offensive enough to make candidates need a good cry in private?
Will Mayor Skippy finally get to sleep-- once his Deputy Mayor gets him a drink of water and tucks him in?
Will Back-up Girl finally get to finish her Monk marathon and her wine spritzer?
Stay tuned, for the next thoroughly-punctuated adventure of Back-up Girl.
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Vote for Of Cabbages and Kings at Humor-blogs.com. And don't forget to check out all the funny doodlers participating in Doodle Week over at Stickfiguregrrl.
16 comments:
The Red Pen of Justice, possibly the most powerful weapon of superherodom.
How fortunate for Burghtown to have a superhero with all this ability and weaponry.
She just needs some quality rallying catch phrases. Monk has "He's the Guy," and "It's a blessing, and a curse."
As I sit here today, I'll try to come up with a few. "I'm on my way" is so over used. Way too 60's Batmanish.
DaOldMan- She'd be happy for the assistance. We were both too tired after all the cartooning to do anything more than steal blatantly (er, borrow... borrow...) from the Powerpuff Girls. :)
How about "I'll be write there" ? Ok. That's pretty lame. Pass me a wine spritzer.
Meg- Hm. I will put that one under consideration! Here's your wine spritzer, nicely chilled!
So what magic are you going to weave with this Sarah Palin veep choice anyway, O Great Spin Doctor, Back-up Girl? And while you have that Red Pen of Justice out-- is it Back-up or Backup, no hypen? Is this another Associated Press style thing? These are the questions that I am pondering this rainy day in Pa. Bring a little sunshine with your answers.
Ah, and while you have the Red Pen out, make that "hyphen"! ;)
The powerful red pen of justice!!! ROFL!
You do know that red ink is 'too pejorative' in these PC times, dont' you? It should be green ink now .. until green become associated with censure and becomes pejorative too. Just saying... LOL!
Wow, now that's a power tie.
We could have used Back-Up Girl and her Colored (I bet we're not allowed to say that, either, huh?) Pen of Justice here recently, when the local constabulary hung a banner across Main Street advertising their annual Block Party event to be held "next Wednesday" which was all kinds of confusing...especially for those who saw the banner just the day before the event and thought they still had a week...
Unfinished- Back-up Girl tries not to be party-specific, but it really will depend on where Miss Management will lurk in the future.
According to Merriam-Webster, it probably SHOULD be Backup. But the BurghTown press got in wrong in an early article, and well, poor Back-up Girl became stuck with that unnecessary hyphen. :)
Jay- Ah, but the "Green Pen of Justice" just sounds like post-nasal drip is involved somehow...
I can't somehow get past that, even for political correctness... :)
Greg- (Heh, looks like you snuck in there when I was responding to the other folks...)
"Next Wednesday"... Nice one! We have a billboard ad for a Boat Show that I was reading, and realized it was to occur in FEBRUARY of last year! But it's still sitting there, untouched.
Cute. My nephew used to watch the Powerpuff Girls when he was a little guy. I'd forgotten about them. :)
Laura- It's amazing how the Powerpuffs really are made up of just a few cleverly-placed shapes. Thanks for stopping by!
There should be a whole legion of Back-up Girls to save the world from the many Miss Managements out there!
I love Back-up Girl!
Sandy- Heh, thanks-- she was sorta born of frustration. I've been jokingly referring to myself as Back-up Girl for YEARS... I just never gave a face to her until now. :)
Thats cool - a whole story for doodle week!
Haha Very interesting. I really enjoyed reading your post:)
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