Early in my career, a few of my colleagues and I kidnapped and ransomed our creative director’s favorite set prop: a small cheese cow. There were actually two cheese cows, a mama and a baby, but we chose the smaller one for the simple reason that it was easier to ship. We were serious about this kidnapping, you see. This cow had places to go.
I worked at an advertising agency, Bates USA in Columbus, Ohio, on the Wendy’s business, the fast food chain established by Dave Thomas. During my tenure at Bates, Mr. Thomas would eventually pass away, an event that left none of us emotionally unaffected.
But this story is about the cheese cow, so let me start by saying that the cheese cow is not made of cheese. If you’ve been to Wisconsin and have seen those cheesehead hats sold at airports – it was made out of material like that.
We removed the small cow from Gary’s upstairs office one afternoon in early 2001 and stashed it in my desk. He noticed immediately. We all feigned innocence when interrogated. He was a short man, fierce in his bark, soft in his bite. Talented. He wrote many TV and almost all the radio spots, as well as oversaw the creation of the signage that you’d see in-store. In short, he was the kind of higher up you really wanted to successfully prank – but in a harmless, meaningful way. It had to be done just right. Little did we know that the journey of the cheese cow would come to mean so much more to all of us.
The first real trip for the cheese cow was to Manhattan with me. It went on set during a Kids Meal Shoot. At this point, we had already sent a ransom note to Gary, something made from cut out letters and copied like the goofy notes in really old suspense movies. We FedExed the cow ahead of us and opened it upon arrival. When you’re filming TV commercials, they are of course filmed in shorter segments. For Kids’ Meal shoots, there’s what’s called the lock-off, the end bit where all the toys are displayed and the camera pans across them, the voiceover makes its ominous and important promises. My client, Allison, and art director, Rod were in on the gag. We were all in giggles about it. It didn’t take much to convince the director at Curious Pictures to get in on it too. It was quickly decided we would do one last take where the cheese cow would crash through the toy set-up like Godzilla. We would show it during the first rough-cut presentation a couple of weeks later.
The day before the presentation, we received the Beta. It was awesome. There were the toys, and then here came the cheese cow, wobbling its merry way to knocking over every last one of them. The sound team at Curious dubbed in monster noises. Then it hit us: we had to get Bob Levite to approve us showing it. Bob was the President of our office. He might flip if we showed it without his knowledge. All of the presentations, at any level, were always high-pressure. Everything had to be perfect. We always had a battle plan before each one. I remember nervously walking into his office and explaining what was going on. He was dead serious at first. Just looked at me blankly. Then he smiled, just a tiny bit. “Okay,” he said. “But do it after New York has gotten off the line.” I agreed. It made sense. Our New York office housed our head creatives, the guys who came up with Miller’s “Tastes Great, Less Filling.” Their time was not for pranks or gags. Unless, of course, it was their idea.
We went through the normal presentation and as everyone was about to leave the room, Rod said: “Oh, wait. We almost forgot. We have one more option to show.” And there wobbled the cheese cow. Gary just stared at the TV. He looked around the room. “Who has my cheese cow?” We all shrugged. Gary looked at Bob. “Did you know about this?” Bob shook his head and quickly left the room. Now the game was really on.
The cheese cow went to Bob Levite’s daughter’s wedding. Pictures of the cow cutting the cake were sent to Gary. Pretty soon the head honchos at Wendy’s marketing were in on it too. The cheese cow had a travel schedule. It was going to San Francisco, Italy, the Bahamas. People were taking it on vacation. We literally had a spreadsheet of where the cow would be when.
But first, on September 11th, it was accompanying me and a couple of colleagues to Cincinnati to a still photography shoot. I think we were shooting some kind of hamburger. There was an extra person going with us, our junior account executive, because she was training to take over the still shoots. We always drove to Cincinnati from Columbus. It wasn’t that far. We left early in the morning. There were four of us on the drive down and we took someone’s Pathfinder, a fortunate choice, in hindsight. The ride was jovial and lighthearted. The cheese cow was packed securely in its comfy box. When we arrived to the studio the big screen TV was on, which was strange. Usually classical music was playing. Everybody would be laughing and talking. It was oddly somber.
“The second tower just got hit,” Leslie, the lead food stylist said. She and her assistant had just flown in from New York City that morning.
“What are you talking about?”
Everyone stood and staredat us. They filled us in. We sat down and watched in horror with the rest of the world. I called my then boyfriend, who is now my husband. He lived in Pittsburgh but used to do a lot of work in Manhattan. He had lived there for weeks at a time. “My God, we’re under attack,” he said.
It also just so happened that we had a second shoot going on at Giant’s stadium. All of the high-level executives were there. I called my colleague. They were watching the smoke plumes curl into the sky. The National Guard was arriving at the stadium. It was needed as a staging area. Our shoot team had two limos that hadn’t left the stadium yet, so everyone crammed in and started driving. Driving where? They supposed back to Ohio, once they figured out transportation to get that far. The limos were local only.
Back in Cincinnati, our food stylists kept working. They positioned lettuce. They lipsticked tomatoes. What else could be done? Their cell phones were on. Normally they were off. They had friends who worked in the Towers. We all did. We all did what everyone else who didn’t live in Manhattan did. We watched in horror as the Towers fell. As the Pentagon was hit. As the plane went down in Pennsylvania. We cried and kept working. What else could be done?
Near the end of the day, we realized our food stylists would be stranded in Cincinnati. We made phone calls to find a rental car. No luck in Cinci. But there was one, literally one, left in Columbus. We booked it. We found them a hotel room. We piled into the Pathfinder. Leslie rode in the way back with their luggage. Thankfully, she’s about five foot two and weighs ninety pounds. We knew they would have a long drive back to New York, one where they would worry the entire time, wheels spinning, awaiting news of their friends and family. So, as ludicrous as it may seem, given the grave and horrific events that had transpired, we sent them off with the cheese cow and some disposable cameras. A distraction.
Meanwhile, our colleagues who were shooting at the Giants stadium had managed to secure Dave Thomas’s old RV. Someone was driving it up from somewhere several states south. One of the franchisees owned it, and when he heard that ten execs were stranded, he sent it on up with a driver.
A few weeks after 9/11, Leslie mailed us the resulting photos with a note. There were more photos than any of us had expected given the circumstances, but apparently a goofy distraction was exactly what was needed to help keep them going on the drive home.
Why I thought of writing this today is two-fold, I suppose. First, my 2.5 year old daughter and I were slowly wandering past storefronts, going the usual impossibly slow toddler pace. The one where seasons change as you walk. We were looking in the window of a toy shop that had a few garden gnomes interspersed in the display, which reminded me of the Travelocity ads, which reminded me of the cheese cow. And second, I quit my job several months ago and find I have days where I struggle with what I’ve accomplished that day, its relative level of importance compared to contributing in some manner to our GDP. Or struggle with how much I’m actually keeping my daughter entertained and learning, and how much I’m helping anyone outside of my immediate family. And then this morning we had a most fantastic play date with our friends, where the little things rose to the surface, the meaningful things that peek out of the chaos of daily life – the making of sandwiches on a torrentially rainy day, the kids entertaining each other, the sweet sleep of a five week old baby in my arms. The comfort taken in the company of friends.
Or the long drive home with a cheese cow after the world has been forever altered.
When we told Gary where his cheese cow was – the only time we ever told him where it was – he didn’t mind. That was the last trip the cow took under our watch. I expect it’s sitting somewhere in Gary’s house now, next to its cheese cow mother.
