Underpants On The Outside

About a month ago, astronomers asked themselves whether Pluto deserved to be a planet.  Eventually they decided that it didn’t, but in that limbo period I saw a comedic opportunity.  If Pluto had a marketing department, how would they try to persuade the astronomers?

I spent several days working on it and asked several friends to ignore their work reading draft after draft.  Eventually I thought I had something decent.  I’ve been trying to get published in McSweeney’s, but I thought the article might have been good enough to go for the top: The New Yorker.  I sent it off; a week later they told me it was amusing, but they weren’t going to publish it.  By then Pluto had already lost its planet status, and I sent it to McSweeney’s with just a hint of desperation.  Unfortunately, they correctly saw that the opportunity for Pluto humor had passed.

That was over a week ago, and with no other options, I’ve decided to publish it on the most disgraceful site on the internet: Underpants on the Outside, or as I now think of it, “where comedy goes to die.”  Enjoy.

The Last Status Meeting of Pluto’s Marketing Department

(Written August 17, 2006)

Good morning everybody; we’ve got a lot to do, so grab a bagel and take a seat.

If you didn’t get my memo earlier, I just read a very troubling article in the Times.  As we speak there are a couple thousand astronomers gathering in Prague to decide how to define what a planet is.   If things don’t go well for us, Pluto could lose its “planet” status and be nothing more than a chunk of orbital ice by next week.  We need to nip this one in the bud, people, so no one is leaving this room until we have an aggressive, multi-media campaign to remind America that Pluto is everybody’s favorite little planet.

I’ll be honest: this isn’t going to be easy.  As I’ve said from the beginning, the first thing they teach you in Branding 101 is, “don’t name your product after the god of the underworld,” but we have to work with what we got.  Luckily, most Americans believe we named the planet after a cartoon dog, so let’s take advantage of that.  Someone call up Disney; maybe they want to co-sponsor something.

Kate, I want you and Simon to set Pluto up with one of those Myspace pages that the kids are into.  Just because we’re six billion kilometers from the Sun with an approximate temperature of minus four hundred degrees doesn’t mean we’re not ‘hip’.  Ooh, that just gave me an idea: I don’t know if it’s in the budget, but let’s find out what it would cost to host the Winter X-games.  

While you’re brainstorming, try and come up with some viral schemes.  Maybe we can give out free snow cones in Central Park.   

You guys also need to realize we’re fighting this on two fronts.  Some scientists are trying to kick us out of the Planet Posse, but others want to add more planets, and this is just as bad, if not worse.  Let me put it this way: when was the last time you heard someone talking about Neptune?  A lot of you weren’t working here then, but when Pluto was just an independent start-up Neptune was the toast of the solar system.  Then we went public and all of sudden they were laying people off left and right.  Incidentally, the first department to go was marketing.  You’re fighting for your job, guys. 

This all started because some Cal Tech bookworm found a new, bigger, round orbiting celestia- No, Tom, I will not call it a planet!  That’s the whole fucking point!  Have you been listening to me at all??  Let me reiterate: whatever this guy found, it is a large, round, orbiting celestial body.  Next person to call it a planet is fired.

But we caught a break.  Does anyone know what this Cal Tech trekkie wants to call his new quote-unquote, “planet”?  Xena!  He wants our solar system to be the Earth, The Sun, eight Roman gods and Xena: Warrior Princess.  Might as well name it Nerdatron.

I bet this brainiac never thought of how this will screw up the mnemonics.  Everybody knows that if you want to remember the solar system, it’s “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pies.”  That’s a great mnemonic.  Everybody loves pie.  What is it going to be if we add Planet Xena…“Purple Xylophones?”  Would you be happy if your mother sent you nine of those?

Goddamn it, Tom, I was being sarcastic when I called it Planet Xena. 

Now consider the other scenario.  If Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, the mnemonic is going to be “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us… NOTHING.”  She doesn’t sound so excellent now, does she?  We need to play up that Pluto equals pie, and as we all know pie promotes family values.  

What we’re trying to do is tough, but not impossible.  Look at Africa.  Five years ago, no one gave a crap; thanks to Angelina Jolie, Gwenyth Paltrow is wearing beads and face paint while African orphans are fetching twenty five grand on the black market… or so I’ve heard.  We need that kind of celebrity power.   Someone find out if Angelina’s pregnant again.

Pluto has been a planet since 1930; I’ll be damned if some egghead is going to come along and take that away from us.  Look, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are nothing but gas, and if a bunch of orbital farts can be planets, you better believe we can. At least we’re solid.