Goodbye, Sumner Redstone
When I worked at Nicktoons, I would log into the voicemail system as an Admin (so I’d be untraceable) and then leave threatening messages for my fellow artists from “Sumner Redstone,” scolding and badgering them for not being happy enough at work, not working hard enough, taking vacation days, staying out too long at lunch... anything which made them happy but didn’t make Sumner money. I used an ethereal New Age music track as the background music, and a creepy text-to-speech program as the robotic voice of our distant, alien, unknowable billionaire boss.
Then I’d post up outside their offices and find some busy work to do until they returned to their desks and listened to their voicemail. It always started with the phone next to their ear and then they'd put it on the speakerphone and they’d angrily yell “Who is it? Who keeps leaving these horrible messages for me?” And people in the know would circle around to hear the latest spooky, intrusive, bullying message from our Billionaire boss, who we all kinda knew was only so rich because he was stealing from all our paychecks.
I kept it a secret who was making the messages for 2 years. It KILLED me to keep it secret. Then, one day in the SpongeBob offices, Aaron Springer played Sherm Cohen one of "Sumner's" voicemails right in front of me when I wasn’t ready. They started discussing the various creepy messages they’d gotten, and more and more people heard the telltale music coming from the speaker and gathered to compare notes. I started sweating bullets and tried to keep up a poker face, but Aaron saw my knowing little smirk and accused me outright and I broke down laughing and the gig was up. So I folded the joke, only rolling it out for birthday greetings, sinister greetings/threats to new hires, and exit messages for experienced employees leaving the company for better jobs elsewhere. One last final Human Resources exit interview message from Robot Sumner.
Then I left Nickelodeon under the most hostile circumstances possible -- they illegally fired me from the company for signing my Writers Guild card (you know, that protected civil right we all supposedly have), and then Sumner's lawyers testified in court that I had threatened my fellow animators with physical violence to coerce them into also signing their cards—like we were longshoremen in the 1950s. It was all lies designed to destroy the WGA’s attempt to unionize the studio, and it all seemed so pathetic… until they made a few phone calls and suddenly I couldn't get work anywhere in animation. I almost lost my house, it shattered my relationship, and I had a few friends who wouldn't be seen with me in public any longer lest they also get tagged as a troublesome unionist. After that, the idea of a funny version of Sumner Redstone left ashes in my mouth and I deliberately forgot all about those messages from Sumner Redstone for many, many years.
Until Wednesday morning when I learned that Sumner Redstone was dead.
I suddenly flashed back to myself at 23 years old, cackling in my office as I plagued my coworkers with these sinister voicemail messages, and I thought “Wait, I know those are saved on my computer somewhere...” So I found them, reread them, soaked up the aesthetic, and created one last Sumner Redstone message for all my fellow Viacom alumni. A parting message from our old mutual boss as Sumner sails off into the great unknown which awaits us all after we die.
I'm no longer just a writer these days, however, and Facetime & Zoom calls are totally ubiquitous now, so I decided to direct a video message instead of a mere voicemail, a short movie celebrating Sumner’s life and legacy in this hair-raising, but loving fashion.
Sadly, I forgot to make a list of everyone I used to make these voicemails for so many years ago, so I can’t make them individually for all my old coworkers and send them anonymously to their cell phones, so instead, I subbed in the generic “Human Worker” in place of each of your names. It actually makes the joke even better somehow. Like now that Sumner has passed on from the human experience he can’t even be bothered to learn your filthy human name.
Please, though, fellow Viacom alumni, just because I didn’t use your name that doesn’t make it any less of a love letter to each of you, or to Sumner, that decrepit old wage thief who died with $7 Billion of our wages in his bank accounts. In the end, he was reduced to using an iPad which had been programmed with prerecorded phrases of his own voice growling “Yes,” “No,” and “Fuck You” to communicate with the world (seriously, look it up).
His life had become my art.
I suppose the moral of the story is “Don’t piss off content creators because Karma is a bitch.”
Content is King, fellow Nickelodeon/Viacom alumni. Hahaha. Don’t make me crush your squishy human heads. Love, Sumner, for the last time.
OR IS IT???
With apologies to Ray Lynch & Stephen La Rivière