Green Lit (Dumb...Huh?) - Tealy and the Crew

-

The email came on a Monday.

Tealy was eating cereal. He was not doing anything important. He was just existing in his kitchen at a normal hour of the morning being a normal person having a normal day, and then his phone exploded.

Not literally. Though given DumbDird's general relationship with cause and effect, literally was never fully off the table.

The group chat notifications came in so fast the screen didn't have time to lock between them.

"DURR" "DURR" "DURR" "DURR DURR DURR" "TALLY" "TALLY" "TALLY TALLY TALLY" "DURR TALLY OPEN YOUR DOOR"

Tealy looked at the last message.

Then he looked at his front door.

Then he opened it.

DumbDird was standing on the porch holding the laptop, still in pajamas, breathing like he'd run the entire way, which he probably had, with the expression of a man whose face was physically struggling to contain what was happening inside his brain.

He turned the laptop around.

Tealy read the email.

He read it again.

He took the laptop, read it a third time, handed it back, and stood in his doorway for a moment.

"Huh," said Tealy.

"DURR—"

"Don't."

"DURR—"

"DumbDird I swear—"

"DURRRRRRRRR—"

DumbDird grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him exactly once with the contained energy of someone who had been physically holding this in since the moment the email arrived and could not hold it one second longer.

Tealy let it happen.

Just this once.

The conditions were read aloud to the full group later that afternoon, assembled at Tealy's place because DumbDird had invited everyone without asking Tealy, which was a pattern that showed no signs of stopping.

Tealy read them from the laptop because DumbDird kept getting too excited to finish sentences.

Condition one: The show would be Netflix-exclusive. The YouTube video would have to come down.

DumbDird accepted this immediately and with no hesitation, then two seconds later asked "Durr, but what about the 340 views" with genuine mournful energy, then accepted it again.

Blara shrugged and ate a chip.

Beric nodded with the look of someone mentally cataloguing the production upgrade opportunities that Netflix infrastructure represented.

Dird, who was present and had come in person, which felt significant, said "reasonable condition" and nothing else.

Bayla said "oh that's exciting!" and meant it at full volume.

UltraDumbDird asked if Netflix was food again. The room ignored this with the practiced efficiency of people who had been ignoring it for a while.

Condition two: A minimum of six episodes before the show would go live on the platform.

"Six episodes," Tealy said.

"DURR, SIX—"

"That's five more catapult rides."

The room considered this.

Beric said "I'd like to try a different launch angle this time" which was not the concern Tealy had been raising but was very Beric.

"Durr, Tally, you were great in episode two—" DumbDird started.

"I got a taco and went home."

"DURR, YEAH, PERFECTLY—"

Condition three: Episode one had to be re-edited to the same standard as episode two before anything went live.

This one landed differently.

Everyone looked at Beric.

Beric was already nodding. He had the look of a man being handed a project he had wanted to be handed for some time. Episode one had been, from a technical standpoint, a document of suffering. The floor footage. The sideways camera. The unidentified finger. The crookedly photographed title card in Comic Sans.

"I'll need the original files," Beric said.

"Durr, they're on the laptop," DumbDird said.

"The same laptop that lives in your pants."

"Durr, yeah."

Beric accepted this without comment and held out his hand.

The re-edit of episode one took Beric four days, which was three days and twenty-two hours longer than he'd expected and which he described only as "the floor footage was extensive" when asked about it, in the tone of a man who had seen things.

He had salvaged what he could. The catapult launches were good. DumbDird's energy was, as always, undeniable. UltraDumbDird's "WHEEEEE" had been given a proper audio mix that made it sound almost intentional. Beric's own launch had been re-cut using the second camera angle he'd set up himself, and it looked genuinely excellent, which he noted with quiet satisfaction.

The unidentified finger was gone.

The Comic Sans was gone.

The three minutes of camera adjustment at the beginning had been replaced with a clean cold open of just the catapult, sitting under a single light, which echoed the post-credits scene of episode two and created what Beric described as "accidental continuity" and what Dird described, after watching it once, as "surprisingly coherent visual language" while looking vaguely annoyed about having to say that.

The re-edited episode one was, genuinely, a good piece of television.

Tealy watched it and did not speak for a moment afterward.

"Beric," he said.

"Yeah."

"This is actually good."

Beric nodded once. "The material was always there."

Tealy looked at the screen. At the catapult. At DumbDird in the sequined jacket beaming under the flickering lights that Beric had color-corrected into something almost intentional.

"The material was DumbDird launching people with a catapult."

"Yeah," said Beric.

"And it's good."

"Yeah."

Tealy sat with this for a moment.

"Don't tell him I said that."

"DURR, SAID WHAT, TALLY—" DumbDird hollered from the kitchen where he had been getting snacks and had apparently heard everything.

Tealy closed his eyes.

The planning meeting for episodes three through six happened the following Tuesday.

DumbDird had made an agenda. It was written on a piece of paper in large letters and contained four items:

1. DURR NEW CONTESTANTS 2. DURR BIGGER CATAPULT (episode 5 maybe) 3. DURR SPECIAL GUEST (working on it) 4. DURR SNACKS

Dird looked at the agenda. "What's the special guest."

"Durr, working on it," DumbDird said.

"You wrote that on the agenda. I'm asking what it means."

"Durr, it means I'm working on it, Dird."

Dird stared at him. "Is the special guest a person."

DumbDird smiled.

Dird's eyes narrowed. "DumbDird. Is the special guest a person."

"Durr," said DumbDird, "probably."

Dird wrote something in the margin of his book, which he did when he wanted to remember something, and said nothing further.

Tealy looked at the agenda. At the group assembled around the table. At the sequined jacket hanging on the back of DumbDird's chair like a talisman.

Dumb...Huh? was going to be on Netflix.

With six episodes.

And a special guest that was only probably a person.

And a bigger catapult in episode five.

Tealy reached across the table and took a Banana Nacho gummy from the open bag in the center.

Chewed it.

"Okay," he said. "When do we start."

DumbDird's face did the thing.

Tealy pointed at him immediately. "Don't."

"DURRRRR—"

"DumbDird—"

"TALLY WE'RE GOING TO NETFLIX—"

"I know—"

"DURRRRRRR—"

"I KNOW—"

Blara posted a photo of cheese in the group chat.

Dird reacted with 👍

Somewhere outside, a catapult was waiting.

Netflix didn't know what was coming.

Neither, honestly, did any of them.

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