Dispatches from the Protozone

Years before I ever set bare foot onto an ad agency lobby as a member of the security staff asked me kindly to slip back on my socks and shoes, I worked as a master puppeteer on the popular children’s show, The Protozone. Misunderstood in its day, the program never achieved mainstream success, always having difficulty showing the lighter side of microorganisms. Henson it was not.

We were hip though, hiring several eukaryote consultants, having them on set to ensure we weren’t wildly off base in our protozoa portrayals. I wasn’t even an original cast member – that honor went to actual members of an amoeba acting troupe. They were fine in rehearsals – so the story goes – but on opening night they were nowhere to be seen. What did the producers expect? When you enlist tiny, single-celled organisms, who are only visible under powerful microscopes, this is what happens. The director scrambled picking members of the audience at random to join the performance. I was one of those lucky people. 

In the script, my character, Friar Dino Flagella, ran the Church of the Flagellates, a religious order of wispy appendages, floating through time and space. There were some hiccups after that first performance, but most children on hand took to the stories, almost as if they’d been infected. Frankly, with so much time passing, I can now say that the relationship between actors and audience was a decidedly parasitic one, with us literally feeding off them. 

Still, it was an exciting thing to be a part of. One day a Paramecium would show up and it would change the whole complexion of the show. We would adapt the script to fit whatever was in the room. This was actual improv existing on a microscopic level. Sometimes, a person in the front row would walk out, fed up and disgusted. Something we always viewed as a real achievement.  

So why am I telling you all this? Because I never should have taken the job in the first place. I needed the money at the time, living only off a small allowance and the occasional car wash cash. While there were protozoans in my family, the connection was a distant one. Some relatives spoke about a bad case of amoebic dysentery that popped up on a cruise ship a long time ago. The details were scant though. I should have done everything in my power to bring a projection screen down to the theatre, making the original cast members feel more comfortable. They never felt seen. How come? Because no one ever thought to make them visible. Instead, a panicked production team went with an all-human cast to salvage the investors money. 

I didn’t know that then. I only knew it was a great opportunity. There are times when I feel like apologizing to every single-cell organism – though I know such an undertaking is impossible. While many of them survive through predation, what we did was no better. We took the essence of organic tissue and caricatured it for our own entertainment. Simply put, it wasn’t our story to tell. How do I know for certain that the most devout dinoflagellates distill their own liqueur for piety and profit? The truth is, I don’t. 

I’d like to think I’ve evolved since the days of The Protozone, in the midst of much acclaim and adulation. Then again, who can really say what counts as progress?