Putting together a website after nine years of self-promotion dormancy is really quite monumental. It requires culling (gulp) 14 years’ worth of work, some of which is so old that you can’t even open the files anymore (ah, good ol’ QuarkXPress). It’s also a little bit of a head trip…you revisit something you had in mind as a great accomplishment only to find that it’s not outstanding at all. Or, like an old dress, it really just doesn’t fit anymore. The next thing you know, it’s midnight.

On occasion, you stumble across a funny moment that you totally forgot about. Here’s one of them:

Red Mango (officially “the original frozen yogurt”) hired yours truly to help get them off the ground in the U.S. Working for a start-up is quite challenging, lots of late nights, but often very rewarding, as it was in this case. Until the day you get the call that your baby is all growns up, opening 150 locations, moving to Texas and…going with a big, bad-ass ad agency. “Your check is in the mail. Can you send us your files?”

Anyway. In 2006, Pinkberry had just made its debut in Los Angeles and lines were forming around the block. Red Mango was racing to get their own stores open. So when they needed something, it meant they needed it a couple of weeks ago. Like gift card presenters.

No biggie. I’ll create some arty yogurt and maybe some text? Sure: Treat yourself well. Not bad. Client approves and I’m onto the next project.

And then the call: “Uh, Cris, we need to re-do these. There’s a monkey in the yogurt.”

What.

“There’s a monkey in the yogurt! I gotta go. Call you later.”

I spent the rest of that afternoon thoroughly distracted and certainly perplexed…what is he talking about? What monkey?? And then, I saw it…Two eyes. And a mouth. Monkey! %$#@.

Oh well. The yogurt may have had too much monkey but they did get a nice tagline from that little late-night job, one that they still use. What’s the score? Are we keeping score?

In the case that you are in my camp and don’t immediately see the monkey, here’s a hint: he’s wearing a little red hat.