A TMNT Halloween
“You okay Pete?”
“Yeah, I'm just worried about this pitch, do you really think I have a shot with this?”
What's not to love? It's a great idea! They'll go nuts, now come on your audience is waiting buddy.”
The two men ambled down the corridor to the executive boardroom, the place where money was made and decisions broke the hearts of countless creators.
Pete scurried along, clutching his presentation, neatly filed in his briefcase, to his chest like it was his first born son.
He had no way of knowing if he was going to do well until he saw his bosses faces, that would be the deciding factor, his friend strolled alongside him, apparently not the slightest bit bothered by his friends concerns.
Pete had worked on this idea for a year now, it was his baby, his last big shot at making a real name for himself in the cartoon business and he'd be damned if he let himself drop the ball... but by god was this a hell of a long walk tot he door.
He made his friend wait before opening the door and wiped his forehead one last time with his handkerchief. This was his moment. He stepped over the threshold.
Seven men turned to look at him as he entered, like a pack of wolves appraising whether or not they could bring down the skinny moose that had just blundered into their den.
“Ah, Peter, come in please, settle yourself by the board there and we can get this show on the road.” said the bearded guy in the big chair, that was the headman. The one you really did not want to annoy if you wanted to be given your big chance.
Pete took a deep breath, “Well sir, uh, I have for you a whole new idea never before seen in cartoons. We've had um, aliens and characters with super powers from other dimensions and we, we even have animals characters from completely new places like um, in the sky making people happy or or underwater.
“But I have anew idea, how about, mutated animals that can talk and act like humans and they're here, like living in New York like the rest of us, only obviously they cant show themselves because, well, they're mutated animals who's going to want to see them?”
The board members were nodding now, some without smiling, which meant they could go either way, but the director was fiddling with his beard, from what his friends had told him this was a good sign to look for.
“So, um, without further ado, I would like to introduce you guys to...” Pete whipped off the cover over the first of his conceptual drawings. “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!”
The board members looked, and carried on looking. There were a few 'hhhm's' and one or two 'oh's' but not much delighted gasping.
That was okay, early days yet, just explain the concept.
“See these guys used to be little pet turtles, but then one day they get dropped down the sewer and they come into contact with this kind of, radioactive, mutating ooze that transforms them so they can stand up and talk like we do, and there's this Japanese guy who runs into the ooze and gets mutated into a rat, only he can talk and everything too so he kind of adopts this little turtles cos they're still only babies right? So, to help them survive he teaches them how to be ninjas, which is obviously where we get the title.”
Pete paused for breath, he hoped he hadn't babbled too much.
“Interesting,” said the director, now full-on stroking his beard, which seemed a little creepy now. “But why should they be so interesting? Are they just training with a giant mouse so they can find hot cheerleaders or something?” The rest of the board chuckled obediently at this meagre attempt at humour.
Pete swallowed. “Uh, no, no they have some enemies, I have the drawings here, uh, okay. This is the main bad guy, he's this like, extraterrestrial brain thing that wants to take over the world, and this guy over here is the Shredder, you see all the blades? He's the brain guy's henchman and does most of the work getting the grunts in line y'know?”
“Who are these grunts exactly?” asked one of the board members, Pete didn't know his name but he knew that it was this guy who'd discovered those multicoloured horses would be a big hit with girls.
“Well, that brings me to this drawing, as you can see they're two bad guys based on the, uh, less attractive members of the animal kingdom, at the moment we only have ideas for these two, they're based on a rhino and a warthog, we could expand on this though I mean, there's about a million ways this could go. We could even introduce the idea of portals into whole new worlds and expand it to...”
Pete stopped, the director was holding up his hand.
“These ideas of yours, they centre a lot around these animals don't they?”
Pete swallowed again, it was harder this time. “Yes sir they, they do.”
“I see. Well, I'm not trying to nitpick or anything here but, surely turtles aren't exactly the most...mobile of creatures are they?”
“Uh, well..no but...”
“And in the wild,” continued the director. “Wouldn't a rat try and eat these creatures rather than adopt them? I mean where's the motivation? You have to admit it's a little far fetched.”
“And just think of what the parents will have to say,” added one of the members who Pete came afterwards to think of as 'that jerk. “I mean, isn't it encouraging them to hate rhinos? Aren't those nearly extinct or something? That not really a can of worms we want to open am I right?”
The other board members, including the director, were nodding. Pete felt like his intestines had just sprung a leak and someone had lugged a ten ton ball of lead into his stomach.
“You know, Pete, its a nice idea but I just don't think its the kind of thing we can use right now. Maybe if you tweak it around a little, wait a little while, we might be willing to look at it again but right now...its a no from us.”
Pete nodded his head, not looking at them. “I, uh, well, thank you for your time.”
“That's no problem son, feel free to come back with any more ideas you get huh?”
Pete nodded again, picked up his drawings and left the room.
Once he reached his office, the feelings of rejection became too much for him.
Jamming his drawings into the very shredder that had inspired one character, he pressed the button and watched his ideas disappear.
Outside the board room, next to the water cooler, Jim from accounting was chatting to Alec from the mail room. Alec nearly choked on his glass of water, droplets spilling down his white beard as his blue eyes widened in shock.
“What is it Alec?” Jim asked, suddenly concerned.
“It felt as if a million fans had cried out at once...and were suddenly silenced...” Alec murmured.
Jim looked at his friend a little more closely.
“Dude, whatever you just took, could I have some?”
