▶Buffalo winging it
Box wipe to the Little Nero's logo.
An unseen announcer speaks in a melodic baritone.
Announcer: In a world…
Cross dissolve to a still photograph of the Earth taken from orbit.
Announcer: Where nothing is quite what it seems…
The planet splits along invisible seams, reshaping itself into a Mercator projection map.
Announcer: Seriously, look at that thing. You expect me to believe that Greenland is bigger than the entire continent of Africa?
Star wipe to the mid-to-high-rise skyline of Buffalo. The announcer performatively clears his throat.
Announcer: But that's beside the point! For you see, gentle viewer, deep within Nickel City, Little Nero's elite gastronomists have made a groundbreaking discovery!
The skyline begins a glacially slow dissolve. Over time, it reveals a simple sound stage, a semicircular media nook with a pair of ergonomic chairs facing the camera across a coffee table, all low to the ground, all appointed in focus grouped shades of beige. In the chair to the left is Paul Freedom, outfitted in an inscrutable personal style. One wingtipped foot is crossed over the knee of his favorite jeans, into which is tucked a white collared shirt straining to contain his modest physique, all of which is topped off with a matte black tie and a plaid sportcoat. Across from him is seated an indistinctly elder man who, with his wild white hair and eyebrows, appears to have been sent by central casting to play Mad Scientist 1. That may, in fact, be exactly what happened. After all, what real scientist would wear his lab coat to a commercial set? Paul Freedom pipes up, revealing himself as the announcer from earlier.
Paul Freedom: Hey, Little Nero’s customers! This is Paul Freedom, coming at you from the City of Good Neighbors with exciting news! Now, I know what you’re thinking. What, you think, could be more exciting than Little Nero’s recent pledge to make our world-famous pizza from 100% ingredients by 2030?
Cut to a close shot of Paul. His mouth is stretched into the sort of smile usually reserved for telling a lucky contestant about their parting gift, but his eyes betray a deep discomfort.
Paul Freedom: I’m glad you thought that! What, indeed? Well, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to the loyal empire of Little Nero’s customers my brilliant guest, Doctor…
Paul’s speech stumbles to a halt. He bites his lip for several awkward seconds before proceeding.
Paul Freedom: Doctor Redacted? Am I pronouncing that right?
Hard cut back to the wider shot. Doctor Redacted and Paul are each holding ceramic mugs that were previously nowhere to be seen. The good Doctor speaks with a halting deliberacy.
Doctor Redacted: Yes. My name is Doctor Redacted.
Paul Freedom: Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up! Now, Doctor, as I understand it, you and your team have made a discovery that will disrupt the culinary world in a way we haven’t seen since Little Nero’s rolled out our $7 Hot Or Ready deal!
Cut to a closeup of Paul so severe that it’s possible to see the individual burst capillaries in his bleary eyes.
Paul Freedom: Please. Tell us more about that.
Dissolve to stock footage of a roaming herd of bison. Doctor Redacted speaks over it. Each sentence feels distinct from each other in tempo and intonation, with the same disjointed feeling sometimes extending to individual words.
Doctor Redacted: As you know, Little Nero’s has always been on the vanguard of gustatory discovery. All 31 of the officially recognized flavors in our sauce were carefully developed, tested, and curated to give our customers the maximum experience. We know things about pizza that would chill the mere layman to the core, and we pride ourselves on that. And yet, as our legions of customers join us on our march into the future of pizza, we also look to the annals of our past. For you see, even before there was pizza, there was buffalo.
There is an abrupt cut back to the sound stage.
Paul Freedom: Wait, do you mean the animal or the city?
Doctor Redacted: We don’t have time for clarity!
The cut back to the bison B-roll, which seems to pick up at the start of the previous footage, is just as abrupt.
Doctor Redacted: The indigenous peoples of this great land are renowned for not only hunting the mighty buffalo, but letting no part of that majestic beast go to waste. They ate its meat. They tanned its hide. They found a use for each and every part, and Little Nero’s has always had every intention of honoring that tradition. But, you see, that traditional view of the buffalo had already accounted for every part, and none of those parts had passed our rigorous standards of quality dominance.
In voiceover, Paul speaks with a dragging languor.
Paul Freedom: Did you let that stop you?
Doctor Redacted: We don’t let anything stop us! Our team had the insight that, if we couldn’t make use of any of the existing parts, we could solve that problem by creating more parts!
Paul Freedom: But what other parts could a buffalo have?
Doctor Redacted: Oh, we had all sorts of grand ideas. Exoskeletons! Ovipositors! Spinnerets! But, ultimately, we settled on wings. As you can see-
The audio cuts abruptly and the entire frame goes black for several seconds. Fade up on the sound stage again, where the mugs and furniture are gone but both men are inexplicably wearing safety glasses.
Doctor Redacted: So, ultimately, we determined that most chickens have naturally occurring wings and that might be a better way to direct our efforts. We did, however, hit upon the patent pending innovation of cooking them in a sauce made from butter and a different sauce!
Paul visibly winces.
Paul Freedom: Well, there you have it, Little Nero’s customers! The Little Nero’s pizza you know and love is teaming up with brand new Little Nero’s buffalo wings, available at participating locations! Better yet, in the Little Nero’s app, you can celebrate this impressive debut by using the promo code SHOWOPENER, all caps, no spaces, to get a free 6-piece order of wings with a large one-topping pizza purchased at the regular price! Little Nero’s: it’s a pizza!
Fade to black.