A Real Hero

The sixteen members of Coaster Bozo’s marketing team now sat in a dimly lit room on the 23rd floor of the Bozo Monument. Staring at each other gravely, they felt like the ground they were standing on could collapse at any moment. This was not a sustainable situation- much less a marketable one.

“What do we do now?” An especially young employee asked with all honesty, instantly sending everyone’s minds back to the image they had witnessed only minutes earlier of President Bozo sobbing off his balcony uncontrollably.

It had happened in a matter of seconds. One moment, he was rallying all of them more than they were him; going on about how this was the year of the Bozo and how they would find a way to turn things around. Just after, as his proud musings fell to silence, everyone’s attention was drawn to a child and his mother viewing the meeting from a nearby skyscraper just across the road. Nobody wanted to admit it, but everyone there clearly heard what the child said looking at the CEO-superhero the entire park was based on:

“Who’s that, mommy?”

With that, the meeting was for all intents and purposes adjourned, the staff forced to retreat as their boss became a veritable raincould slobbering all over the sidewalk hundreds of feet below.

Now they just looked at each other, nobody having an answer to their junior coworker’s plea. But a few did at least try, in this desperate state of affairs.

“We gotta get him into shape.” An especially muscular coworker put forth. “Heroes are supposed to inspire our youth, not be laughed at by them. Mr. Bozo is by no means unhealthy, as I see it- but he could put in more work to developing a more striking image. Sure, it would conflict with currently existing issues of his comic, but it could also make for a good character arc.”

“That’s ludicrous.” The most especially snobby of the team shot in response. “What appeal the character of Coaster Bozo does have lies entirely in his comically boisterous yet also impishly small aesthetic. Losing that means losing the character’s identity.”

“So… what is it that you think Bozo is missing?” The only especially old employee in the room questioned. “Something needs to change.”

“Nothing needs to change.” The one most especially mysterious board member archaically posited. “That child… they didn’t even know who Bozo was. That’s the problem. It doesn’t matter if he has appeal or not, nobody cares about the guy. We need some publicity.”

“We’re standin’ in a freakin’ statue o’ tha guys’s likeness!” The infamously and especially Bostonian-accented employee called out from atop his chair.

“Not enough.” The mysterious employee decreed. “Buildings are boring. Unengaging. They don’t meet this generation’s standards of interactive entertainment.”

“Interactive? So what, we toss tha guy out on the streets ta talk to the kiddies or somethin’?”

All eyes shot to the one employee hailing from Boston.

“There’s an idea-“ abruptly, the most scheming and cunning of the employees chimed in- “what if we brought Coaster Bozo- the hero, not the CEO- into our park, as a real, interactive form of entertainment?”

Everyone grabbed their clipboards.